A controversial American YouTuber was sentenced to half a year in a South Korean labor prison for his nuisance behavior, including posting a video of himself crudely dancing on a statue honoring World War II sex slaves.
Ramsey Khalid Ismael, a self-proclaimed internet “troll” known as Johnny Somali online, was tossed into the specialized prison on Wednesday, the Korea Herald reported.
Ismael, 25, had provoked citizens in South Korea by singing the North Korean national anthem, spilled noodles inside a convenience store, got into several heated arguments with strangers, and degraded the solemn “Statue of Peace,” all stunts he shared on YouTube.
“I am the Otto Warmbier of South Korea. A political prisoner wrongfully and falsely accused and made into a scapegoat by a tyrannical government. The truth will come to light soon,” Ismael wrote on X in January, referencing college student Otto Warmbier, who became a North Korean prisoner in 2016 before he was released in a vegetative state and later died.
Ismael was indicted by the Seoul Western District Court in November on charges of obstruction of business and violations of minor public order laws.
“The defendant repeatedly committed crimes against unspecified members of the public to generate profit via YouTube and distributed the content in disregard of Korean law,” the court said during the trial, noting prosecutors sought a three-year prison sentence, according to the outlet.
The trial, originally scheduled for March 2025, had been delayed after prosecutors added additional charges alleging Ismael shared AI-generated sexual content of him with a deepfake with a female YouTuber, the outlet reported.
Ismael was deemed a flight risk and was detained immediately after his sentencing.
Ismael faces 20 days of detention, is barred from working at institutions that serve minors and people with disabilities for five years, and will have to be registered as a sex offender for the same time.
Ismael, who currently boasts a whopping 5,220 YouTube subscribers, had become notorious on the South Korean streets for his offensive stunts, including repeatedly shouting racial slurs.
After his indictment, Ismael reshared videos on his YouTube account of what he claimed was the reason for his charges.
In a video posted in January titled “They Want me in Korean Jail for this…” Ismael recorded himself in a black robe and hood similar to that of a Ku Klux Klan member and inciting several heated arguments.
In one encounter, a man yelled at Ismael to “get out of this country” as the online agitator continued to provoke the situation.
Ismael continued his romp around the Korean capital getting into several more heated arguments and making sexually abusive and racist comments at unsuspecting passers-by.
One interaction occurred inside a convenience store when Ismael and another man got into a shouting match over Israel before the two were kicked out by a store employee, but not before the streamer shouted “Free Palestine.”
A second video posted in March titled “I’m Facing Charges for Dancing in Korea (with TTS),” Ismael and another man deliberately caused a scene on a Korean bus, twerking in the aisles to music blasting out of his phone speakers while his viewers’ comments were read aloud by text-to-speech (TTS).
Ismael was confronted by a couple sitting on the bus and he began spewing “facts” about the history of North and South Korea while ignoring a woman when she brought up proper manners for passengers.
Police were called onto the bus and kicked out the two hooligans.
Ismael walked the rest of the way to his destination, the “Statue of Peace” or “Comfort Women Statue.”
The memorial was created as a symbol for the approximately 200,000 women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II, according to the BBC.
Ismael approached the statue – featuring a young girl sitting in a straight posture on a chair with her hands on her lap – before he made sexual dance moves on top of and in front of the memorial.
The streamer at one point even kissed the statue of the girl, putting his beanie on her head, showing his bleached hair.
In his bio on X, Ismael calls himself a “Political Prisoner in South Korea on Trial for Freedom of Speech and Expression.”
He has made similar comments towards the judicial system in Japan after he was fined $1,257 for disturbing the peace with his loud music while at a restaurant in Japan, the BBC reported.
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