South Korean police officers jailed over deadly 2022 Halloween crush
Bereaved family members of the victims of the Itaewon tragedy react to the ruling.
In short:
The former chief of a Seoul police station has been sentenced to three years in prison for a botched response to a crowd crush on Halloween that killed 159 people.
Since the tragedy, relatives of the victims have called for the punishment of senior officials including the interior minister.
What's next?
Both the police officers and prosecutors can appeal against the ruling.
A South Korean court has handed prison sentences to three police officers over their botched handling of a 2022 Halloween crush in a Seoul nightlife district that killed 159 people.
It was the first conviction of officials over their failure to prevent or adequately respond to the overcrowding that occurred in the popular nightlife district Itaewon.
The Seoul Western District Court sentenced Lee Im-jae, the former chief of Seoul's Yongsan police station, whose jurisdiction includes Itaewon, to three years in prison.
The crowd became stuck in one of the extremely narrow alleys that wind through the neighbourhood of Itaewon.
It sentenced another Yongsan police officer to two years in prison and gave a third officer a suspended two-year term.
The three officers were convicted of professional negligence resulting in death.
The court said the crowd crush was a "man-made disaster" which could have either been prevented or the impact substantially reduced if the accused had fulfilled their duties by preparing properly for the crowd, alerting others of the danger quickly and supervising other police officers appropriately.
No top-level officials have been charged or held accountable, prompting criticism from bereaved families and opposition politicians.
The victims, who were mostly in their 20s and 30s, had gathered in Itaewon for Halloween celebrations.
Since the tragedy, relatives have called for the punishment of senior officials, including Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min.
The constitutional court ruled against a parliamentary vote to impeach the minister last year.
The crush, one of the biggest peacetime disasters in South Korea, caused a nationwide outpouring of grief.
Speaking to the Yonhap news agency ahead of the ruling, Lee Im-jae's lawyer said it was "excessively harsh" to expect his client to have prepared for something that nobody could have predicted.
The police officers and prosecutors can both appeal against the ruling.
The victims, who were mostly in their 20s and 30s, had gathered in Itaewon for Halloween celebrations.
Police ignored hotline calls warning of crowd swell
The court also ruled that Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan ward office, and three other ward officials were not guilty.
It said a ward office was unlikely to have a legal right to control or break up a crowd of people.
Prosecutors had sought seven-year jail terms for both Park Hee-young and Lee Im-jae.
Bereaved family members criticised the acquittal of Park Hee-young and the other ward officials.
"Does this make sense? We can't really accept this," Lee Jeong-min, a representative of the families, told reporters.
In early 2023, a police special investigation concluded that police and municipal officials had failed to formulate effective crowd control measures despite anticipating a huge number of people in Itaewon.
Investigators said police also ignored hotline calls by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds before the surge turned deadly.
The crush, one of the biggest peacetime disasters in South Korea, caused a nationwide outpouring of grief.
The Itaewon deaths shocked a nation still scarred by the 2014 sinking of a ferry, the Sewol, that killed 304 people including 250 children on a school trip.
Earlier this year, parliament passed a bill backed by the ruling and opposition parties to launch a fresh investigation into the Halloween crush.
AP/Reuters
By：https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-01/south-korea-police-officers-sentenced-for-deadly-halloween-crush/104415700(责任编辑：admin)
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