"Trust Has Collapsed," Rival Parties Unanimously Rebuke; Police Chief Says "Apologies"

[Anchor]

At the National Assembly, both the ruling and opposition parties questioned the recent incident in Jeju where police falsely closed a missing persons case. Both the Minister of the Interior and Safety and the Acting Commissioner General of the National Police Agency bowed their heads in apology.

This is reporter Ha Jeongyeon.

[Reporter]

At a full meeting of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee.

Lawmakers from both rival parties universally rebuked the police over their false handling of the missing person case involving Jang Miran in Jeju.

[Chae Hyun-il / Democratic Party Lawmaker: According to the manual for receiving and handling missing person reports, isn't there a reporting system to superiors? But arbitrarily handling it as a deceased person case like this, are cases like this being found often?]

[Kim Yeji / People Power Party Lawmaker: I do not think this is a matter that should be left solely to internal investigation and inspection results. This is a false closure and a failure of internal control. You need to give more trust, but things that continuously undermine trust are happening now.]

As it was revealed that Senior Officer A of the missing persons team at the Jeju Seobu Police Station arbitrarily closed not only the case of Jang Miran but also other missing person cases, Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung stated, "Because the police failed to play their proper role, people lost their lives."

Following the Jang Yun-gi case and now the Jeju missing person case, as the police's shoddy handling of cases came under fire consecutively, the Acting Commissioner General of the National Police Agency also bowed his head.

[Yoo Jae-sung / Acting Commissioner General of the National Police Agency: Regarding the investigation into the missing person case in Jeju, I consider it deeply regrettable that we have caused concern to the public.]

However, to an opposition lawmaker's rebuke asking, "Trust has collapsed, so can the police still be entrusted with the investigation, and is it okay to abolish the prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers?", Acting Commissioner General Yoo Jae-sung argued, "The Jeju missing person case is separate from supplementary investigation powers."

Lawmakers' inquiries regarding the motive for the crime, such as "Why Senior Officer A falsely closed the missing person case," continued, but Acting Commissioner General Yoo only stated, "It is a matter that must be clearly uncovered through investigation," failing to give a clear answer.

(Video Reporter: Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing: Jeon Mingyu)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.