A South Korean court has sentenced two former senior police officers for destroying evidence linked to Seoul’s deadly 2022 Halloween crush.
Tens of thousands of people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, had been out on 29 October 2022 to enjoy the first post-pandemic holiday celebrations in the popular Itaewon nightlife district. The night turned deadly when crowds poured into a narrow, sloping alleyway between bars and clubs, leading to nearly 160 people being crushed to death.
The two former police officers were found to have ordered in the aftermath of the disaster the deletion of four internal police reports that had identified in advance safety concerns over possible overcrowding in the area.
The Seoul western district court sentenced Park Sung-min, a former senior intelligence officer at the Seoul metropolitan police agency, to one and a half years in prison, and Kim Jin-ho, a former intelligence officer at the Yongsan police station, to a year in prison, suspended for three years.
“The defendants should have actively cooperated with the investigation by preserving existing data but on the contrary they deleted or arbitrarily destroyed internal reports written prior to the accident and destroyed evidence,” the court said.
It said “harsh punishment” was inevitable as they had “made it difficult to determine the substantial truth by minimising and concealing the responsibility of the police”.
Park and Kim are the first police officers to be convicted over the Itaewon disaster.
In January, the head of the etropolitan police agency, Kim Kwang-ho, was charged with professional negligence.
District-level officials have been prosecuted over the disaster but no high-ranking members of government resigned or have faced prosecution, despite criticism from victims’ families over a lack of accountability.
South Korea’s rapid transformation from a war-torn country to Asia’s fourth largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse is a source of national pride. But a series of preventable disasters – such as the 2022 crush and the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking that killed 304 people – have shaken public confidence in authorities.
