Prosecutors and police, who are jointly investigating allegations of shoddy investigative work in the "Jang Yoon-ki case," are examining whether the police leadership at the National Office of Investigation was involved. Meanwhile, the arrest warrant for the former head of the detectives division at the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station, who has been designated as a key figure in the case, was dismissed yesterday (July 21).
Reporter Bae Seong-jae has the details.
The Gwangju District Court dismissed the arrest warrant for Senior Superintendent Park, the former head of detectives at the Gwangsan Police Station, yesterday, stating that "it is difficult to recognize the necessity of detention based on the materials clarified so far."
Park is accused of poorly supervising the investigation, such as forwarding Jang Yoon-ki to prosecutors on charges of "simple murder" instead of "murder with the intent to rape."
He is also suspected of failing to fulfill his duties as a mid-level investigative supervisor by handling a previous sexual crime case involving a Vietnamese woman separately instead of combining it with the current investigation.
Before his pre-trial detention hearing yesterday, Park stated that it was actually the National Office of Investigation under the Korean National Police Agency that blocked the combined investigation.
[Choi In-gyu / Legal counsel for Senior Superintendent Park: "Directives came from the National Office of Investigation on all three occasions instructing us not to combine the cases, so we only handled the ordinary case."]
Having simultaneously raided the National Office of Investigation yesterday, prosecutors and police summoned and questioned Choi, head of the violent crimes division at the National Office of Investigation, and Kim, head of the violent crimes division at the Gwangju Provincial Police Agency, as reference witnesses today.
It is known that investigators have identified a message sent by Choi, head of the violent crimes division at the National Office of Investigation, to Kim, head of the violent crimes division at the Gwangju Provincial Police Agency, directing a separate investigation under the pretext of "instructions from the head of the office."
Park Sung-ju, the former head of the National Office of Investigation who retired at the end of last month, stated in a phone interview with SBS, "If there had been anything special or direct instructions among the reported details, I would remember, but I have no particular memory of it."
An official from the violent crime investigation division at the National Office of Investigation also stated, "We merely determined that there was insufficient time to forward the stalking and murder cases all at once, and we never instructed the application of simple murder charges to cover up or minimize the case."
(Video Editing: Kim Yoon-sung)
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