Overview

• On Sept. 10, the Busan District Court acquitted Choi Mal‑ja, overturning her 1965 conviction and ruling her 1964 actions constituted justifiable self-defense.
• The court said she acted to escape an unlawful assault and found insufficient evidence that the assailant suffered permanent disability, citing surgery records and his subsequent military service.
• Court records state the attacker pinned Choi down, forced his tongue into her mouth and blocked her nose; she escaped by biting off about 1.5 cm of his tongue.
• In the retrial, prosecutors apologized for the past handling of the case and formally asked for her acquittal, calling her response a legitimate act by a sexual assault victim.
• Her lawyers plan to seek state compensation, and the decision challenges a long-cited precedent in legal texts that once rejected self-defense claims in sexual violence cases.