An arrest warrant for former Yongsan Police Chief Lee Im-jae, who was considered a key suspect during the Itaewon accident, was dismissed.
Judge Kim Yu-mi of the Seoul Western District Court said, "It is difficult to recognize the reason for and appropriateness of the arrest for the fear of destroying evidence and fleeing with only the data submitted at this stage," regarding former chief Lee, who is accused of negligent negligence on duty. We need a guarantee," he said as the reason for the dismissal.
An arrest warrant was requested for former chief Lee for not taking precautionary measures, such as deploying a riot squad, despite a report on safety measures that required more career experience during Halloween, and for increasing human casualties by failing to take appropriate relief measures on the day of the disaster.
An arrest warrant for former Yongsan Police Station 112 Situation Chief Song Byeong-joo, who is suspected of inappropriate on-site measures such as handling 112 reports on the day of the accident, was also dismissed for the same reason.
Park Seong-min, former head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's public safety information and foreign affairs department, and Kim Jin-ho, former information chief of Yongsan Police Station, who are suspected of ordering the deletion of an information report written before the disaster that concerned the risk of Halloween crowds, were arrested for fear of destroying evidence.
Park is suspected of instructing "to delete information reports in preparation for inspections and search and seizure as prescribed" in an SNS messenger chat room where information chiefs of front-line police departments gathered after the disaster.
Former manager Kim was charged with deleting the intelligence report by having a subordinate under the direction of former manager Park, and an arrest warrant was requested.