A man in his 50s who smashed the car window of an acquaintance and set the car on fire had his jail sentence confirmed in an appeals court.

The Seoul High Court said Monday it was upholding the lower court’s decision to sentence the accused to eight months in prison.

The man, who suffers from schizophrenia, brought a weapon from home and broke the window of the car after seeing it parked on a road in April 2016. He then threw in an alight newspaper, eventually setting the car aflame. 

The man reportedly committed the arson because the owner of the car, an acquaintance at church, had purportedly been “condescending” toward him.

The court said in upholding the original sentence that “there could have been even more serious damage done, had the victim’s car exploded or had the flames spread.”

The court added that while it is “acknowledged that the man had been lacking the ability to distinguish objects or make decisions due to schizophrenia,” he had not been in a state of complete “loss of ability.”

By Cho Yun-myung (yunc39@heraldcorp.com)