S. Korea considers seeking more legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops

SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is considering seeking more legal jurisdiction over U.S. forces in the South, with public anger mounting after two American soldiers have been arrested for allegedly raping teenage girls in separate cases, an official said Monday.
The allies plan to hold a meeting next month on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that governs the legal status of some 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea and they are likely to discuss the issue, said an official at Seoul's foreign ministry.



Calls for a revision of the SOFA have been reignited after a U.S. Army private was indicted by South Korean prosecutors last week on charges of raping an 18-year-old girl in her rented room on Sept. 24 in Dongducheon, a city home to several U.S. military units. Investigators said the soldier confessed to the rape and said he was drunk at the time.
In a separate case, another U.S. soldier is being investigated for allegedly raping a teenage girl on Sept. 17 in central Seoul.
"In the wake of recent incidents, we are reviewing whether there are inconvenient factors in the process of investigation and prosecution with regard to crimes committed by U.S. soldiers here," the official said.
"Overall improvements, including a possibility of revising the SOFA, will be discussed at next month's meeting."
Some South Korean lawmakers and civic groups argued that the SOFA is unjust because it goes too far in protecting U.S. soldiers.
For example, South Korean police have the right to take custody of a U.S. service member only if they apprehend the suspect at the crime scene in connection with a heinous crime of murder or egregious rape.
U.S. officials are scrambling to ease public anger in South Korea and Gen. James Thurman, the top U.S. military commander in South Korea, imposed a 30-day nighttime curfew on his troops.
On Friday in Seoul, Kurt Campbell, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters that, "I'd like to personally on behalf of the United States government take this opportunity to apologize to the Korean people for the tragic and inexcusable rape."
In 2002, nationwide protests against the U.S. military here broke out after two South Korean middle-school girls were killed by an American armored vehicle.