Mokpo police filed for an arrest warrant Tuesday for a certain 54-year-old Mr. Choe of Yonghae-dong, Mokpo on charges that he kept the body of his dead mother frozen in a grocery store refrigerator for two months.

Police also attained a seizure and search warrant and confiscated the body of Choe's mother -- a certain 79-year-old Mrs. Lee -- and handed it over to other family members.

Choe placed the body of his mother in his grocery store's refrigerator immediately following an autopsy that was performed on her following her death on Feb. 7 from bedsores.

Choe said, "The police conducted a search of my house last August on suspicion of theft, even through I had committed no crime. My mother was so shocked at the time she fell down the steps and was bedridden; she died of the bedsores she developed… I'm not holding a funeral as a protest against the police."

About this, the police said, "He isn't carrying out his duty to perform a funeral, which is a religious obligation, and his refusal to perform a funeral is making those around him uncomfortable, so we filed for a warrant."

(englishnews@chosun.com )