After more than six decades, justice has finally been served for Choi Mal-ja. The 79-year-old walked out of a Busan courthouse on Wednesday, September 10, surrounded by supporters, after judges overturned her 1964 conviction.
Choi had spent 10 months in prison as a teenager for biting off part of the tongue of the man who was sexually assaulting her. This week, the court officially ruled that her actions were an act of self-defense.
When the decision was announced, Choi rose to her feet and declared: “I, Choi-Mal-ja, am finally innocent!” Outside the court, her supporters erupted into chants of “Choiu Mal-ja did it” and “Choi Mal-ja succeeded,” celebrating the verdict with her.
Her long fight to clear her name was reignited in 2018 by the #MeToo movement, which inspired her to push for a retrial. Explaining why she never gave up, she said: “For the victims who shared the same fate as mine, I wanted to be a source of hope for them.”
The retrial, which opened in July, gave Choi the chance to argue once more that biting off half an inch of the man’s tongue—identified only as “Roh”—was a necessary and proportionate act of self-defense against what she described as “an unjust infringement on her bodily integrity and sexual self-determination.”
The assault dates back to May 1964, when 18-year-old Choi was attacked in Gimhae, near Busan, by 21-year-old Roh, a stranger. He threw her to the ground, pinched her nose to block her breathing, and forced his tongue into her mouth. In desperation, Choi bit down, severing part of his tongue, and managed to break free.
But her ordeal escalated further. Shortly after, Roh broke into her home armed with a knife and threatened to kill her father. Instead of holding him accountable, authorities sided with him. Roh went to court accusing Choi of causing “grievous bodily harm,” and shockingly, the judge agreed.
Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison, while her self-defense was dismissed. Prosecutors even suggested she was attracted to her attacker, and the presiding judge went so far as to advise her to marry Roh. Meanwhile, Roh’s own conviction—six months for trespassing and intimidation—was suspended, sparing him any jail time.
