[Anchor]
A Seoul court has denied an extradition request by the United States for a South Korean man who ran one of the world's largest-known child pornography websites.
Authorities tracked down Son Jong-woo along with more than 300 other connected people in a number of countries.
The BBC's Laura Bicker reports.
[Reporter]
Son Jong-woo was revealed as the operator of the Welcome to Video website, a covert online den for people who traded clips of children being sexually assaulted.
He was tried in South Korea and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
After he was released in April, he was taken back into custody after a warrant was issued for potential U.S. extradition.
But the high court in Seoul decided that having him in the country would be helpful to try to fight this type of crime.
Campaigners had urged the court to send him to the U.S., where it's believed the punishment for child pornography crimes is far tougher than in South Korea.
<Photo: Yonhap News>
