A South Korean court on Monday sentenced the former police chief of a district of Seoul to three years in prison for a botched response to a deadly Halloween crowd crush in the capital's Itaewon nightlife district in 2022.
Yongsan police station chief Lee Im-jae is the first senior police official to be convicted over the crush, which led to 159 deaths nearly two years ago.
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Yongsan police station chief Lee Im-jae is the first senior police official to be convicted over the crush, which led to 159 deaths nearly two years ago.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The Seoul Western District Court sentenced former Yongsan police chief Lee Im-ji to three
00:05years in prison on Monday for his botched response to the deadly 2022 Halloween crowd
00:11crush in Itaewon.
00:12He is the first senior police official convicted in connection to the tragedy, which led to
00:18159 deaths.
00:20Lee had failed to prepare for the mass Halloween gathering, thus creating conditions for the
00:24Itaewon tragedy.
00:26The Itaewon deaths shocked a nation still scarred by the 2014 sinking of a ferry, the
00:32Sewol, that killed 304 people, including 250 children, on a school trip.
00:38The court described the crowd crush as a man-made disaster that could have been prevented or
00:43mitigated if he had fulfilled his duties.
00:46Ahead of the ruling, Lee's lawyer argued it was excessively harsh to expect his client
00:51to foresee the tragedy.
00:53Itaewon District Office Chief Park Hee-young and three other officials were found not guilty
00:58of failing to respond adequately.
01:00As the court ruled, they weren't directly responsible for crowd control.
01:05Relatives of the victims had called for accountability from both Lee and Park.
01:09Since the tragedy, they have demanded punishment for senior officials, including Minister of
01:14the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, though a parliamentary vote to impeach him was rejected
01:19last year.
01:21Prosecutors sought seven-year sentences for both Lee and Park, and earlier this year,
01:26Parliament initiated a new investigation into the Halloween crush.