The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling and sentenced two men to life in prison for kidnapping and killing a woman in Seoul's southern district of Gangnam last year. The two -- Lee Kyeong-woo and Hwang Dae-han, both aged 37 -- were indicted for kidnapping the victim, aged 48 at the time, near an apartment building in March last year, killing her the following day and burying her body on a hill in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul. Yeon Ji-ho, an accomplice in the crime, was given 23 years in prison, and a couple, named Yoo Sang-won and Hwang Eun-hee, who masterminded the crime were given eight and six years in prison, respectively. The couple allegedly accepted Lee's proposal to kill the victim, with whom they had a conflicting relationship due to a failure of cryptocurrency investment and paid him a total of 70 million won (US$50,732) in return, according to police. The prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for the two main culprits and the couple, and life imprisonmen t for Yeon, but the court ruled that the couple did not take part in the crime with the intention of killing the victim. The prosecution then appealed to a higher court seeking to apply charges of murder by robbery against the couple, but the court dismissed it, citing insufficient evidence showing they had predicted their actions could kill or lead to the death of the victim. The top court on Thursday upheld the previous ruling, saying no legal principles were wrongly perceived. Source: Yonhap News Agency