Senior South Korean Police Officer Sentenced to 3 Years Over Crowd Crush

A Seoul court sentenced a senior police officer to​ three years in prison on Monday, ​convicting him of contributing through negligence to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in 2022 in one of South Korea’s worst peacetime disasters.Lee Im-jae, the former chief of police in Yongsan District, the area in central Seoul where the disaster happened, was the most senior police officer to be ​found guilty of a crime related to the shocking tragedy.Victims’ families remain deeply unsatisfied and angry with the government’s investigation into the deadly crowd crush.Prosecutors have indicted a total of 23 people, mostly middle-ranking police and civilian officials.

So far a handful have been convicted, with the longest sentence being handed to Mr.Lee.But on Monday, the district court acquitted Park Hee-young, the elected mayor of Yongsan District, of criminal negligence, allowing her to continue in office.The most senior official indicted — Kim Kwang-ho, the former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency — is on​ trial on criminal charges similar to the ones Mr.

Lee faced.On the evening of Oct.29, 2022, thousands of young people packed into Itaewon, a popular neighborhood for nightlife in Yongsan, to enjoy the first post-pandemic, restriction-free Halloween weekend in Seoul.

Hundreds jammed into a narrow and sloping alleyway from both ends, creating a deadly squeeze in the middle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....