Soccer player Hwang Ui-jo indicted on 'molka' charges

Hwang Ui-jo of South Korea returns to the bench after a warmup during halftime of a World Cup qualifying match against China at Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre in Shenzhen, China, on Nov. 21, 2023. (Yonhap)

Prosecutors said Thursday that South Korean footballer Hwang Ui-jo will stand trial on charges of filming his sexual encounters with two women without their consent.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office's Criminal Division 1, which handles gender-related crimes, said it charged the 31-year-old Hwang, who has played 62 international matches for the South Korean national soccer team, for his alleged breach of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes. The prosecution, however, did not detain him.

The forward, signed to English football club Nottingham Forest, is accused of filming the victims without their consent while having sex with them on four occasions between June and September 2022.

"We will not disclose specifics of the alleged crime to prevent secondary harm to the victims," the prosecution said without elaborating further.

Hwang has been accused of worsening the harm done to one of the victims when Hwang and his attorneys disclosed her personal details in a statement released in November last year.

Prosecutors, however, cleared him of charges related to secondary harm, concluding that it didn't disclose sufficient details to lead to her identification.

The case involving Hwang surfaced in June last year when the footballer filed a complaint against a person claiming to be his ex-girlfriend for sharing intimate photos of him with other women on Instagram and blackmailing him.

Police later found out that the person who shared those photos was the wife of Hwang's older brother.

His sister-in-law was handed a three-year prison term by an appellate court last month in relation to the blackmail.

By Park Jun-hee(junheee@heraldcorp.com)