Pyongyang, October 3 (KCNA) -- The Women's Solidarity and the preparatory committee for the Meeting of People for Building New Society in south Korea held a conference outside the U.S. embassy in Seoul on Sept. 30. They demanded the punishment of the GI of the U.S. Second Division for his sexual assault against an 18-year old girl student.

A press release was read out at the conference at the end of speeches.

The press release accused the Tongduchon Police Office in Kyonggi Province of handing the criminal over to the U.S. forces side without punishment.

Crimes by U.S. troops are unabated in south Korea as evidenced by violence against an old couple in Tongduchon in February this year, it said.

This is attributable to the shackling SOFA which helps GI criminals escape stern punishment, it deplored, adding this is evidenced by the case in which the U.S. soldiers were declared no guilty even after they drove an armored car over two girl students Sin Hyo Sun and Sim Mi Son, killing them.

The U.S. forces side expressed "regret" over the case and the like in a bid to bar the south Koreans' resentment against the U.S. from adversely affecting the south Korea-U.S. authorities talks at hand and because of fear that its stooges may suffer a defeat in the next year elections, it said.

It urged the U.S. to revise the SOFA if it fears south Koreans' mounting anti-American sentiment.

If it does not put the criminal in custody without delay, it will face the same large-scale candlelight resistance as what happened in 2002 when the two girl students were killed, it warned.

A deputy spokesman for the Democratic Labor Party of south Korea in a commentary on Sept. 29 said that the crimes by the U.S. forces would never cease as long as the shackling agreement granting them extraterritorial rights remains in force.

The SOFA should totally be revised in order to put an end to the GI crimes, it stressed.