Lee Woo-cheol, a long-term death-row inmate whose execution had not been carried out after he was sentenced to death for killing an associate and the partner of the associate, has died. It came 30 years after his death sentence was finalized.

According to the Ministry of Justice on the 7th, while incarcerated at Gwangju Prison, Lee died last month after a battle with cancer. A member of the Anyang AP faction, in September 1994 near a highway rest area in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, he killed fellow member Mr. A and secretly buried the body.

When Mr. A, who had taken part in contract violence at the direction of the boss, tried to leave the organization, he committed the crime in collusion with two other members.

During this process, fearing that the crime would be exposed, they lured the partner of Mr. A to the same place, killed the partner, and buried the two together.

Lee was indicted on charges of murder and concealment of a corpse, and in 1996 the Supreme Court finalized the death sentence.

With his death, the number of people in the country with final death sentences has fallen to 56. Of these, four were sentenced to death under the Military Criminal Act and are being held in military prisons.

Since December 1997, South Korea has suspended executions and is currently classified by the international community as a ‘de facto abolitionist’ state.