South Korean Woman Cleared Decades After Biting Attacker’s Tongue During Attempted Rape

Asia Pacific|Woman Is Absolved Decades After Biting Attacker’s Tongue During Attempted Rape

In 1965, a South Korean woman was convicted ​of inflicting bodily harm on a man after she bit a half inch off his tongue during an attempted rape. On Wednesday, ​a court absolved her in a retrial after six decades.

“​I, Choi Mal-ja, am finally innocent!” shouted the 79​-year-old woman on Wednesday after ​the district court in the city of Busan ruled that her act was “justified as self-defense.​”

On a May evening in 1964, Ms. Choi, then 18, was sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old stranger​. He pinned her to the ground, straddled her and tried to force his tongue into her mouth. She bit his tongue and escaped.

Seventeen days later, the man and several of his friends raided Ms. Choi’s home in the southern town of Gimhae. He threatened to stab her father with a kitchen knife. He later sued Ms. Choi on charges of inflicting grievous bodily harm. She countered by suing him on charges of attempted rape, trespassing and blackmailing.

The police considered Ms. Choi innocent and arrested the man. But prosecutors later released him and let him stand trial as a free man. The man was charged with trespassing and blackmailing, but not with attempted rape. Prosecutors instead arrested Ms. Choi​. She was charged with inflicting “grievous bodily harm” on the man.

During interrogations​ by prosecutors, Ms. Choi had to go through a virginity test, and the result was made public during her trial, according to court records. Ms. Choi and her lawyers also said that prosecutors and ​judges blamed her for “crippling a young man” and asked whether she would like to settle the case by marrying her attacker.