GIMCHEON -- A local court on Friday sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison for abandoning a 3-year-old girl and causing her death.

The Daegu District Court's branch in Gimcheon delivered the sentence to the 22-year-old sister of the baby, surnamed Kim, and ordered her to complete 160 hours of a child abuse treatment program.

The accused was arrested in February after the body of the 3-year-old was discovered at an empty house in Gumi, 260 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

Kim was found to have left the toddler alone in the house in August last year after she moved out to remarry.

The cause of the girl's death has yet to be revealed.

"The accused contributed to the victim's death by abandoning her and neglecting responsibilities of providing necessities of life, including food, clothing and housing," the court said, adding it is hard to fathom the sufferings of starvation and fear the little girl must have gone through.

But the court turned down the prosecution's demand to order the accused to wear an electronic bracelet, saying that Kim did not appear to have "actively intended" for her sister to die and has no previous serious criminal record.

Kim was originally known as the girl's mother until the case took a bizarre twist in early March, when it was discovered through DNA tests that Kim's 48-year-old mother surnamed Seok, who lived on a different floor of the same multiunit house, is the biological mother of the victim.

Prosecutors and police suspect that Kim and Seok each gave birth to baby girls around the same time, and the elder woman may have switched the babies so her baby would be raised by her adult daughter. Investigators have yet to discover the whereabouts of Kim's missing daughter, let alone whether she is alive or dead. Seok has strongly denied the allegations.

In February, Seok was indicted on charges of attempting to dispose the body of her 3-year-old daughter and abducting her granddaughter of the same age years ago. (Yonhap)