Seoul police have arrested a South Korean man who poured boiling water on his Thai partner’s face while she was sleeping in the hopes of disfiguring her so that she would not leave him for other men.
Police from the Uijeongbu station in Gyeonggi province said on Thursday they had arrested a man in his forties on special assault charges, according to local media.
The man is accused of scalding the face of his Thai partner, who is in her thirties, while she was sleeping in his flat in the Howon-dong neighbourhood in the greater Seoul metropolitan area, at noon on December 3.
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When she woke up in pain, he offered to take her to a hospital in Seongdong-gu. She agreed as she did not have the funds to pay for treatment. Suspecting she had been assaulted, the hospital reported her case to police at 9pm.
The man confessed to officers that he “wanted to make her ugly so she wouldn’t see other men”, the Korea Herald reported.
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He apologised to his partner, begged her to forgive him and stay in the relationship, promising to take care of her. However, she did not want to have anything to do with her partner and said she would speak to him only through police or lawyers.
That same day, she posted an appeal on a social media group for Thais in the country looking for translators to help her navigate the legal processes, according to the Thaiger news outlet.