The mother of two minors, whose remains were found hidden in two suitcases in August 2022, declared this Wednesday before a New Zealand court that she will prove her "innocence" during the trial on murder charges.
The 42-year-old woman, whose identity has not been revealed, appeared briefly today in an administrative hearing in the Auckland High Court, prior to the four-week trial that she will face in the same instance from April 29, 2024.
"I didn't do it, it's the truth. I'm going to prove my innocence," the defendant told Judge Graham Lang as she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs to her cell, Radio New Zealand reported today.
The woman, born in South Korea and who managed to obtain a New Zealand passport after residing in the oceanic country, stood during today's preliminary hearing with her head bowed and covering her eyes, the station added.
The mother of these two minors - who are believed to be between five and ten years old at the time of their deaths - was extradited from South Korea to New Zealand at the end of last November, to be prosecuted by New Zealand justice.
She is accused of the alleged murder of the two children, whose bodies were found in August 2022 in two suitcases, where it is believed they remained for several years, allegedly acquired at an abandoned objects auction in New Zealand.
Investigations into this case suggest that the woman returned to her country of origin in the second half of 2018 - presumably a year after her husband's death - without a record of departure.
Since then she had lived in Seoul and other locations before moving early last year to an apartment in the town of Ulsan, some 300 kilometers from the South Korean capital, where she was detained by South Korean authorities in mid-September last and extradited. to New Zealand two months later.
Last December, the lawyer representing the defendant, who has been in prison since her extradition, declared that his client is "not guilty" of the murder of her children.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
