A HUSBAND and wife have been sentenced to 12 years’ and 30 years’ jail, respectively, today for murdering their 10-year-old live-in niece after repetitive abuse, including “water torture”.

The Suwon High Court upheld a lower court’s prison sentences for the couple, identified only as a 34-year-old classical musician and 35-year-old female shaman, after convicting them of murder and child abuse, according to Yonhap.

They have been ordered to complete an 80-hour child abuse treatment programme and banned from working at child-related facilities for 10 years.

The couple were arrested in February last year, after their niece died of secondary shock at a local hospital. They were indicted on the charge of beating the victim on several occasions and plunging her head into a bathtub full of water for about 30 minutes at their home in Yongin, near Suwon.

The victim’s mother, who reportedly abandoned her daughter after her divorce and was later charged with aiding and neglecting child abuse, was sentenced to three years in prison by a district court in September last year. – Bernama, January 25, 2022.