A U.S. citizen accused of murdering a South Korean college student in 1997 was extradited to South Korea on Wednesday.
  

Arthur Patterson arrived at Incheon airport, west of Seoul, Wednesday morning. He is suspected of stabbing a college student, identified by his surname Cho, multiple times at a Burger King in the popular foreigner district of Itaewon in central Seoul 18 years ago.
  

"It's not right that they (the family of the victim) have to keep going through this pain over and over and over, but it's not right that I'm here either. I'm still shocked that I'm even here," Patterson told reporters after arriving at the airport.
  

Denying the charges, he pointed to Korean-American Edward Lee, who he was with at the site of the homicide, as the culprit.
  

A local court found Lee guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1998, but he was acquitted by the Supreme Court the following year on a lack of evidence.
  

At the time, Patterson, who is half Korean, was in Seoul as the dependent of a civilian worker with the U.S. military. The 35-year-old was under investigation when he fled the country in 1999. His departure was made possible after law enforcement authorities failed to extend his foreign travel ban.
  

Prosecutors indicted Patterson for the murder of the 22-year-old student in November 2011 and set into motion the extradition process.
  

While Patterson was caught in the United States in May 2011 in collaboration with U.S. authorities, he has been delaying extradition by submitting multiple habeas corpus petitions, the Ministry of Justice said.
  

He will be taken into custody at the Seoul Detention Center before standing trial. (Yonhap)