A Seoul court has ordered the government to compensate the family of a mentally ill man who died after being handcuffed by police, court records showed Saturday.

The Seoul Central District Court recently ruled that the state must pay 320 million won (US$269,160) to the victim’s family over the use of excessive force by law enforcement.

The incident occurred in January 2019, when police and emergency rescue workers were called to a home in the city on the family’s report that the man was showing abnormal behavior.

The man who suffered from mental disorders refused to be taken to a hospital and confronted police with two or three knives in his hand.

Officers used a stun gun to overpower the man and held him down on his stomach on the bed for about 10 minutes, with his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles tied with bandages.

When rescue workers tried to move him, he was unconscious. He was taken to a hospital and died five months later.

The court recognized the causal relationship between police officers’ excessive force and his death.

“Handcuffing the deceased’s hands and tying his feet behind his back while he was no longer in a condition of harming himself or others exceeded the standards and scope of an exercise of physical force allowed by the law,” the court said.

Source: Yonhap News Agency