[Anchor]
The police investigation into allegations of botched investigative work regarding the Jang Yoon-gi case is expanding beyond the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station to its highest pinnacle, the National Office of Investigation. Circumstances have also emerged showing that the Gwangsan Police Station responded inadequately to a stalking report two days before Jang murdered a high school girl.
Reporter Im Jihyeon has the story.
[Reporter]
The National Police Agency's special investigation team summoned and questioned Superintendent General Kim, who served as the chief of the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station at the time of the initial investigation into the Jang Yoon-gi case, as a suspect yesterday morning (July 23).
Superintendent General Kim is suspected of exerting undue influence during the process of applying charges of simple murder rather than murder with the intent to commit rape against Jang Yoon-gi.
The special investigation team is focusing on the handling of a stalking report filed by a Vietnamese woman, surnamed A, two days before Jang murdered the late Lee Chae-won.
Previously, Jang was accused of breaking into woman A's studio apartment, sexually assaulting her, and subsequently stalking her.
When woman A reported the stalking at around 8:00 PM on May 3, officers from the Cheomdan District Unit of the Gwangsan Police Station who were dispatched to the scene merely sent a single warning text message to Jang without even booking him.
After receiving the stalking warning message, Jang threw his cell phone SIM card into the Yeongsan River and subsequently committed the murder.
Although this was crucial evidence supporting Jang's charge of murder during rape, the Gwangsan Police Station assigned the case to the Women and Youth Division to investigate it separately.
The special investigation team suspects that the leadership of the Gwangsan Police Station, including Superintendent General Kim, attempted to disconnect the link between the murder and stalking crimes out of concern for disciplinary actions resulting from the inadequate response to stalking.
Suspicions that the National Office of Investigation ordered the Gwangsan Police Station to conduct separate investigations regarding Jang are also subjects to be clarified.
The special investigation team summoned and questioned two officials from the same department, including the head of the violent crimes investigation unit at the National Office of Investigation, as reference witnesses yesterday, though Park Seong-ju, head of the National Office of Investigation at the time, is reportedly not yet included among those under investigation.
(Video by Park Ji-in | Graphics by Kim Ye-ji)
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