▲ Jang Yoon-ki
It has been revealed that police investigating the "Gwangju female high school student murder case" had their request for a search warrant for Jang Yoon-ki rejected after misspelling his name.
According to data submitted by the Gwangju Provincial Police Agency to People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-min's office, the investigation team at the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station, which was handling the Jang Yoon-ki case, applied for search warrants a total of six times during Jang's detention period.
Specifically, two days after Jang was arrested, on May 7 of this year, police applied for a search warrant to secure personal information related to accounts under Jang Yoon-ki's name, deposit and withdrawal records, and CCTV footage from the bank.
However, the warrant requested by the police failed to pass through the prosecution, with the prosecution stating that the reason for rejection was that the name of the subject of the search and seizure, "Jang Yoon-ki," had been incorrectly written.
A search warrant for card usage history under Jang's name, also requested by the police on the same day, was rejected at the prosecution stage on the grounds that the specific cards needed to be designated.
In the end, the police reapplied for the warrants the next day, on May 8, after revising the contents.
The search warrants for the accounts and CCTV were resubmitted with the same contents after correcting only the subject's name, while the warrant regarding the cards was resubmitted with specific credit and debit card information and usage history under Jang Yoon-ki's name.
Following corrections and revisions by the prosecution, the police search warrants were promptly issued by the court on the same day.
In addition, the police applied for search warrants for Jang Yoon-ki's portal site account, as well as one weapon and one mobile phone secured inside his bag on the day of his arrest, and these warrants were reportedly issued on time without being rejected by the prosecution.
In response, Lawmaker Park Soo-min criticized the incident, stating, "An absurd situation occurred where the police failed to secure a warrant because they got the subject's name wrong. To strip away even the supplementary investigation authority, which is the final verification mechanism, from an organization that cannot even filter out its own errors means leaving no one behind to catch those mistakes."
Reported by Kim Taewon | Video by Choi Gang-san | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
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