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Report: SKorean actress found guilty of adultery

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-17 23:42

SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean court found one of the country's most famous actresses guilty of adultery Wednesday, months after she tried but failed to have a law that makes extramarital affairs a crime ruled unconstitutional.

A South Korean actress Ok So-ri reacts as she leaves from a court in Goyang, north of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008. Ok was found guilty of her extramarital affairs with an opera singer, a news report said Wednesday, months after Seoul's Constitutional Court upheld a ban on adultery. [Agencies]

A district court gave Ok So-ri a suspended sentence of eight months, meaning she will not serve jail time, Yonhap news agency reported. The court near Seoul gave Ok's lover a six-month suspended sentence.

A court spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The sensational sex-and-celebrities case has been tabloid fodder for months, with Ok's challenge to the adultery law adding extra spice.

Last year, Ok acknowledged during a news conference that she had had an affair with an opera singer friend of her husband for a few months in 2006. She stressed the affair was a result of her loveless marriage to actor Park Chul.

The 40-year-old actress earlier this year filed a petition to have the adultery ban ruled an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. But in October, the Constitutional Court upheld the ban, part of South Korea's 55-year-old criminal code.

Despite decades of Western influence, South Korea remains deeply conservative and is influenced by a Confucian heritage. Those convicted under the anti-adultery law face prison sentences of up to two years, though few actually serve time.

Supporters of the adultery ban say it promotes monogamy and keeps families intact. Opponents argue the law violates privacy. Complaints have been filed with the Constitutional Court three times in 1990, 1993 and 2001 to abolish the law, but the court has upheld it every time.

While women's rights group were the ban's biggest supporters in the past when the law was meant to keep philandering husbands in line, in recent years some husbands have begun pressing adultery charges on their unfaithful wives.

The number of adultery cases filed in South Korea has dropped in recent years, declining to 8,070 in 2006 from 12,760 in 2000, according to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. About 80 percent of those cases were dropped before formal charges were filed, largely because complaints were withdrawn.

Many Muslim nations have similar adultery laws. Austria, Switzerland and some US states also have laws prohibiting extramarital affairs, according to the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations, a government-funded legal counseling office.