The director of a taekwondo studio who was convicted of killing a five-year-old child by placing him upside down in a rolled-up mat for almost half an hour has filed an appeal on his prison sentence.
 
The Uijeongbu District Court on Thursday found the man guilty of multiple offenses, including murder and child abuse, and sentenced him to 30-years behind bars.

He was also ordered to complete a 40-hour child abuse treatment program and restricted from working with children or teenagers for 10 years.

The court said the man should have known there was a risk of death if he left the child in such a state, especially for 27 minutes, rejecting the defense that it was all in fun and stressing it was necessary to show the strictness of the law to prevent such incidents from happening again. 

On the same day of his sentencing, the man filed a notice of appeal.

He apparently filed his appeal on the grounds of improper sentencing, as he admitted to the child abuse charges but also claimed during the trial that he did not intend to kill the young boy.

The investigation into the murder of the death of the child on July 12 last year at the taekwondo studio in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, also found evidence that the studio director tried to cover up the crime by not performing immediate CPR, even after the child was found unconscious, and deleting CCTV footage.
 
The man was found to have physically and emotionally abused a total of 26 students at the taekwondo studio.