South Korean singer Kim Woo Joo is sentenced to one year in jail after he faked mental illness to avoid the country's mandatory military service.

It was previously reported that Kim was in the process of being prosecuted after he was charged of pretending to be mentally ill in order to be exempted from the 21-month military service mandated by the country to its male citizens.

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However, today, Korean media outlets reported that the singer's sentence was announced by the court and he was ordered to spend a year in jail as a punishment for his crime.

According to reports, the court stated that 29-year old recording artist tried to fake his illness for a long time in order to evade military service. Furthermore, the court stated that Kim planned and executed the pretenses over a long period of time.

Because of this, the court decided to issue a more severe punishment.  In the end, the court decided to sentence Kim to a year in prison.

Previously, it was reported that Kim visited a psychiatric clinic at the Seoul National Hospital from March of 2012 until May last year. It is said that the singer met with a psychiatrist for 42 sessions, claiming that he was seeing ghosts.

His statements, which were revealed to the court, says, "I started seeing ghosts eight years ago." According to Kim, he had to be rushed to the emergency room on two separate occasions after fainting due to shock of 'seeing ghosts'.

After Kim told the hospital about his experiences, the psychiatrist issued him a medical certificate which states that he is suffering from a mental illness due to 'unknown causes'.

Kim then submitted the medical certificate to Korea's Military Manpower Administration and was exempted from military service in October of 2014. However, the court discovered that it was all an elaborate scheme orchestrated by Kim himself.

TagsKim Woo Joo, Korean mandatory military service