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Intelligence officer was below investigation for allegedly ordering deletion of warnings about Halloween evening crowds.
A South Korean police official focused for investigation following the deaths of 156 individuals in a Halloween evening crowd crush in downtown Seoul has been discovered lifeless at his dwelling within the capital.
The 55-year-old official, recognized solely by his surname Jeong, was answerable for intelligence affairs on the Yongsan Police Station overlaying town’s Itaewon leisure district the place the tragedy unfolded on October 29.
He was discovered lifeless at his Seoul dwelling by a member of the family on Friday at about 12:45pm (03:45 GMT) native time, South Korea’s Yonhap Information Company reported, citing unnamed police officers.
Yongsan Police Station, a hearth station, and native authority workplaces have been raided by investigators as a part of a probe into failures by officers within the Itaewon space to reply successfully to studies of overcrowding on the evening of the tragedy, which additionally left about 200 individuals injured.
At the very least 100,000 individuals had flocked to the Itaewon space to have fun the primary post-pandemic Halloween events, and neither native authorities nor police had deliberate measures for a crowd that giant.
“Jeong has been dealing with suspicions that after the tragedy, he ordered the deletion of an inside intelligence report giving prior warnings of a attainable security accident throughout the Halloween interval in a suspected try and cowl up inaction,” Yonhap reported.
“Fees raised in opposition to him included abuse of authority, destruction of proof {and professional} negligence leading to demise,” the information company reported, including that the officer was suspended from duties on Wednesday.
A handful of prime officers together with the police chief, Seoul mayor and the inside minister have issued public apologies, admitting that they had failed to stop the deadly catastrophe.
Public anger has grown following the publication earlier this month of transcripts of emergency calls despatched to the police that confirmed that within the 4 hours earlier than the gang surge turned lethal, police had obtained 11 studies of harmful crowding within the Itaewon space.
A police “Code 0” alert – requiring the quickest attainable response – had been issued for one of many 11 studies of overcrowding, whereas the second-highest “Code 1” alert had been utilized to seven different calls.
Police responded to 4 of the 11 studies by deploying officers to the websites to disperse crowds. As soon as dispersed, the officers returned to different duties and no motion was taken within the case of the seven remaining emergency calls, native media have reported.
On Monday. South Korean legislators slammed the suspected elimination of paperwork associated to the tragedy at a parliamentary session and urged the arrest and punishment of these concerned.
South Korea’s Nationwide Police Commissioner Normal Yoon Hee-keun had mentioned that an intelligence chief on the Yongsan station had ordered information from the evening of the tragedy to be deleted and that he can be investigated.
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