Chosun Daily, News Report, Posted: Oct 04, 2011

A report South Korea’s Chousun Daily notes that an arrest warrant was issued for an American serviceman accused of raping a teenage South Korean girl.

South Korean authorities are expected to take the 21-year-old private into custody, the report noted, adding there is a concern about flight risk. The American, identified as Private Jackson with the Second U.S. Infantry Division in Dongducheon, outside Seoul, is alleged to have tracked the victim to her room, where he repeatedly assaulted her over the course of some four hours.

The suspect later claimed to have been drunk, insisting he could not recall what happened, though reports note that he knowingly sought out homes that housed young women. According to Yonhap News Agency, the suspect examined door fronts to see whether women’s shoes were present before trying the door.

The attack was caught on closed circuit TV.

“The U.S. government will closely cooperate with the South Korean government for a thorough investigation into this case,” Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell later told reporters.

The blogoshpere in South Korea, meanwhile, has lit up with comments.

One visitor to a popular on-line forum wrote that the suspect should be tried in an American court, noting that in South Korea, sexual assault crimes against women “aren’t taken seriously.” The author went on to note that in the U.S. system, the attacker would likely “receive a stiffer sentence.”

According to an editorial in the Korea Times, while the number of American troops stationed in South Korea has fallen in recent years by nearly a third to 26,000, crimes committed by American servicemen have in fact risen by some 75 percent.

Such crimes have received significant attention since the death of two middle school girls in 2002 after they were run over by a American armored personnel carrier. That event triggered deep anti-U.S. stirrings across the country.