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South Korean police have arrested a Korean-American man wanted by the FBI for first-degree murder. The suspect had fled the U.S. to South Korea 10 years ago and had been teaching English in private language institutes until he was captured.
The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency on Wednesday said it had arrested a 31-year-old Korean-American man identified as Nam on charges of killing a retired American policeman in the U.S.
The U.S.-born Nam is suspected of shooting the retired officer to death during a home robbery in Pennsylvania in August 1996. He was arrested there in January 1997, but was freed on US$1 million bail. He fled to South Korea on a tourist visa on March 13, 1998.
In March 1999 the FBI asked the South Korean police to track Nam down, and he was arrested after police issued an all-points bulletin on TV. But he was soon released again because there was no formal extradition treaty between the two countries at that time.
His case prompted the two countries to sign an extradition agreement in December 1999, and in April 2000, South Korean police re-launched the manhunt for him at the request of U.S. authorities. Police tracked him down by checking private English-language tutoring institutes and areas where many expatriates live.
Nam was finally arrested on Tuesday. He had been teaching at a private English-language institute in Toechon, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province for two months.
Over the past decade, Nam had moved from one English-language crammer to another in Seoul, and Gyeonggi, Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces, working two or three months at each institute. A South Korean court will rule on his extradition.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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