▲ Park Hee-young, Mayor of Yongsan-gu, speaks at the second hearing of the ‘Special Committee for Government Investigation into the Itaewon Disaster’ held at the National Assembly on the morning of the 6th. 2023.1.6 Yonhap News
On the 20th, Park Hee-young, the head of Yongsan-gu, Seoul, who was accused of poorly responding before and following the Itaewon disaster, was handed over to trial in a state of detention.
The Seoul Western District Prosecutor’s Office arrested and indicted District Commissioner Park and former Yongsan-gu Safety and Disaster Division Chief Choi Won-joon on charges of business negligence and intentional death, and indicted former Deputy District Commissioner Yoo Seung-jae and former Safety Construction and Transportation Director Mun In-hwan without detention on the same charges.
According to the prosecution, they are accused of not setting up a safety management plan and not properly operating the regular disaster safety situation center (work and negligence), even though they were able to foresee the occurrence of casualties due to large crowds on the day of the disaster.
Prosecutors also found that although they were able to grasp the situation in advance through social media (SNS) or the duty room, they did not take measures such as manpower deployment and road control, and did not properly establish a cooperative system with related organizations such as police and firefighting.
The prosecution reported that a total of 158 people died and 294 people were injured due to the negligence of those who did not take appropriate measures even following the disaster occurred, and applied charges of negligence and accidental death to all four senior officials of the Yongsan-gu Office, including the head of the district office.
In addition to this, Mayor Park is also charged with making and distributing a press release that falsely states the time of arrival at the scene of the accident to cover up the Yongsan-gu Office’s inappropriate response (creating and holding false public documents). This charge was additionally applied at the prosecution stage.
Former section chief Choi is also accused of not taking care of the scene at all even following hearing the news of the accident (dereliction of duty). It is known that former section chief Choi drank and returned home following being aware of the disaster.
The number of defendants who were handed over to trial in the Itaewon massacre increased to 12, including them. On the 30th of last month, the prosecution indicted three people, including Park Seong-min, former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency public security information foreign affairs chief (police officer) and Kim Jin-ho, former Yongsan Police Station information chief (inspector), who were involved in the deletion of the Halloween information report. (Superintendent) and Song Byeong-ju, former head of the 112 Situation Department at Yongsan Police Station (inspector), were indicted.
Prosecutors are also investigating 15 people, including Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Kim Kwang-ho.
Reporter Kim So-hee
