A man in his 50s who attacked an upstairs neighbor with a knife after a long-running dispute over noise between floors has been sentenced to prison. The court also ordered him to wear an electronic tracking device for 10 years.
The Jeju District Court's Criminal Division 2, presided over by Senior Judge Seo Beom-wook, handed down the sentence to a defendant identified as A, who was indicted on charges of attempted murder, aggravated trespassing and violating the Emergency Medical Service Act, legal sources said on the 1st. A was accused of trying to kill an upstairs resident identified as B with a knife at a multi-household building in Yeon-dong, Jeju City, on the evening of March 24. Noise between floors, including a pet dog's barking, had triggered the conflict.
According to prosecutors, A went to B's home while drunk and tried to push past B into the unit. When blocked, A pulled out a knife that had been concealed in advance and swung it. B knocked A down the stairs and closed the front door, preventing further injury.
A denied intent to kill during the trial. His lawyer argued that he had only meant to threaten B, who is large in build. A did, however, admit to charges of cursing at a nurse and throwing medical equipment in the emergency room of Jeju National University Hospital on Sept. 10 last year.
The court found that A acted with conditional intent, carrying out the attack while aware that B could die. It said that years of exposure to noise from the unit above served only as a motive and was not a mitigating factor in sentencing. The court did take into account that A acknowledged the overall facts of the case and that B had expressed willingness to accept a court-deposited settlement payment. Prosecutors had sought a six-year prison term at the final hearing on July 23.
Disputes over noise between floors have led to violent crime in a number of cases. The Korea Environment Corporation's neighbor dispute center received 40,393 noise complaints in 2022. On July 20, the Cheonan branch of the Daejeon District Court sentenced a man in his 40s to 25 years in prison for killing an elderly upstairs neighbor with a knife.
