SEOUL, OCT 1 – A court in Seoul yesterday sentenced the former Yongsan Police Station Chief to three years in prison without hard labor for failing to take safety measures against foreseeable danger in the 2022 fatal crowd stampede incident in Itaewon District, here. .
Lee Im-jae, 54, was indicted last year on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury after the worst crowd stampede in South Korean history left 159 people dead on Halloween weekend in the Itaewon nightlife district on October 29, 2022, reports news agency Yonhap.
“It is expected or foreseeable that a large group of people gathered on a steep alley in Itaewon for Halloween 2022 may cause serious harm to the body due to repulsion and pressure between pedestrians,” the court said.
Ward Office Chief Yongsan, Park Hee-young, and several other officials were also charged, but the same court found them not guilty on the grounds that relevant laws and regulations did not oblige them to provide security measures for events without organizers.
“Crowding from large gatherings was not categorized as a disaster under the relevant laws at the time, and there was no mandatory regulation stating the need to establish a separate security management plan for unhosted events,” the court said.
According to Yonhapthe prosecution claimed that the accused failed to exercise their rights and responsibilities to prevent the incident even though an accident from a large group of people was foreseeable, and demanded a seven-year prison sentence for Lee and Park.
However, the accused throughout the trial maintained that such a large-scale crowd stampede could not be foreseen beforehand, hence they were not responsible for the incident.
So far, 23 people including two companies have been charged in connection with the tragedy.
Following the court’s decision, the victim’s family members held a press conference in front of the court, condemning the decision that acquitted Chief Ward Yongsan of his charges, while urging the prosecution to appeal the verdict for the two accused defendants for a harsher sentence. – Named
