Government Seeks Reimbursement From Police Over Hwaseong Serial Murders False Accusation

[Anchor]

Before Lee Chun-jae was revealed as the real culprit behind the Hwaseong serial murders, Yoon Seong-yeo had to spend 20 years behind bars after being wrongfully accused. The government later paid Yoon more than 2 billion won in compensation. It has now been confirmed that the government has filed a reimbursement lawsuit against the police officers who illegally investigated Yoon at the time of the Hwaseong case.

Reporter An Huijae has the exclusive coverage.

[Reporter]

Yoon Seong-yeo was pointed out as the rapist and murderer of a middle school girl in Hwaseong in 1989 when he was 22 years old, leading to 20 years in prison.

He cleared his name in 2019 following a confession by the real culprit, Lee Chun-jae, and the government paid about 2.2 billion won in compensation to Yoon and his family three years ago.

This was because past illegal arrests and coercion by the police were fully recognized in retrial courts and elsewhere.

[Yoon Seong-yeo / Victim of False Investigation in the Hwaseong Serial Murders (December 2022): If you are hung upside down, the blood rushes to your head. So that really kills a person, it kills them. Whether I'm alive or dead. The aftereffects of that torture back then still...]

However, because the statute of limitations had expired, there was no criminal punishment for the officers in charge, but SBS reporting confirmed that the Ministry of Justice has pursued the right of reimbursement since October of last year.

It claimed 550 million won, equivalent to 25 percent of the compensation amount, from three police officers who conducted coercive investigations at the time and a National Forensic Service examiner who manipulated DNA test results.

[Choi Jung-kyu / Attorney (Law Firm Wongok): (The reimbursement system also has) a preventive function, meaning that "if I engage in illegal law enforcement, I will also bear economic losses and responsibility."]

With the Ministry of Justice pursuing the right of reimbursement, controversy surrounding the scope of responsibility has flared up once again.

While prosecutors apologized, saying, "As the final person in charge of the investigation and holding the power of indictment, we failed to uncover the truth," and the court also bowed its head,

[Park Jung-je / Presiding Judge for Retrial (December 2020): As a member of the judiciary, I offer my apologies regarding the fact that the court failed to properly fulfill its role as the last bastion of human rights.]

Judges and prosecutors were not included in this reimbursement claim.

[Lee Sang-hee / Attorney (Law Firm Jihang): You cannot look at just one agency fragmentarily; human rights violations should be seen as being completed through a series of processes. This should become an opportunity to discuss once again just how far responsibility should be held.]

The Ministry of Justice explained that this is the result of comprehensively judging whether responsibility was acknowledged and the degree of involvement.

The National Forensic Service examiner paid the full claimed amount during the lawsuit process, and the reimbursement lawsuit against the police officers is facing its second trial this coming December.

(Video Editing: Kim Jin-won, Design: Kang Yun-jung)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.