Gangster jailed for beating underage members over drinking game, rule infractions

A gang member has been sentenced to one year and eight months in prison for beating underage subordinates, in one case because they failed to show proper deference to senior members during a drinking game.

The Suwon District Court handed down the sentence, legal sources said Tuesday. He was charged with assault committed as part of an organized criminal group and with aggravated assault involving a weapon.

The first assault took place at a rented guesthouse in Gapyeong County, Gyeonggi, in June last year. The defendant punched and kicked two junior members repeatedly while the group played a drinking game known as the uirigeim, or the "loyalty game."

In the game, players take turns drinking from a single glass, and whoever comes last has to finish what is left. When the juniors took only small sips on their turns and passed the glass on to senior members, the defendant told them that they  "have no manners" and struck them in the stomach and head.

He had beaten them once before. In May last year, he summoned them to a low-rise apartment building in Anyang, Gyeonggi, and hit them several times with an aluminum baseball bat for breaking two of the organization's rules — one requiring them to report before traveling outside the area, the other barring them from wearing shorts.

The following month, he swung the bat at one of them again, this time for turning up in a creased suit to a party marking a senior member's release from prison.

The court weighed his record in setting the sentence. Under Korean law, an offense committed within three years of completing a prison term counts as a repeat offense and carries a heavier penalty.

"The defendant has been punished several times before for offenses of the same kind, and rather than showing restraint while still within the repeat-offense period, went on to commit these crimes, which makes them grave," the court said.

BY KIM JI-HYE [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]