South Korea: Suspected of having killed two children, she is extradited to New Zealand

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South KoreaSuspected of killing two children, she is extradited to New Zealand

A woman suspected of murdering two children, whose remains were found in suitcases, has been extradited from South Korea to New Zealand.

South Korean police arrested the woman in the port city of Ulsan in September. (illustrative image)

AFP

South Korea announced on Tuesday that it had extradited to New Zealand a woman suspected of murdering two children whose remains were found in suitcases.

The 42-year-old woman, believed to be the mother of the two dead children — a New Zealand citizen of Korean descent — and key evidence in the case were handed over to New Zealand authorities on Monday evening , the South Korean Ministry of Justice said in a statement. “We hope that the truth about this case, which has captured the attention of the world, will be revealed after a fair and rigorous legal process in New Zealand,” he added.

South Korean police arrested the woman in the port city of Ulsan in September, weeks after New Zealand authorities discovered the remains of two children, thought to be between 5 and 10 years old when they died, in the around 2018.

“I did not do this”

Footage in the local press at the time showed the woman, whom South Korean police identified only by her surname Lee, being led out of an Ulsan police station by undercover investigators, covering the head with a cloak. When asked by reporters if she would confess to the murders, the woman repeatedly said “I didn’t do that” as she was driven away in a police vehicle.

The macabre discovery came in August. The suitcases were part of a trailer loaded with items, purchased by an unsuspecting family at an auction of abandoned property in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.

New Zealand Police said the bodies had been placed in the trailer likely for several years, complicating the investigation. Authorities have repeatedly stressed that the family who found the bodies were not linked to the homicides and were receiving psychological support to help them deal with the trauma of the morbid discovery.

(AFP)

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