[Anchor]

Chat logs showing that Jang Yoon-gi discussed a plan to kidnap female high school students with high school classmates have been admitted as evidence in court. This follows Jang Yoon-gi's previous confession to murder with the intent of sexual assault, with this corroborating circumstance now accepted by the court.

Reported by Je Hui-won.

[Reporter]

Prosecutors conducted a forensic analysis on a spare smartphone that Jang Yoon-gi had in his possession when he was arrested by the police on May 5, recovering social media conversations between Jang—who was a first-year high school student at the time—and a classmate.

The recovered conversations reportedly included statements to the effect of "If my life is ruined, I will kidnap a female high school student" and "We can kidnap them using a cargo van." In addition, prosecutors secured testimony from a high school classmate stating that Jang had frequently talked about plans to kidnap female high school students in everyday life.

Ahead of the third trial hearing tomorrow (July 27), as Jang Yoon-gi acknowledged the admissibility of the high school chat logs supporting the circumstances of a planned kidnapping, prosecutors withdrew their plans to question Jang's high school classmate and a former colleague from his days as a social public service worker as witnesses.

Also scheduled to attend tomorrow's trial as witnesses are the bereaved family of the late Lee Chae-won and a 17-year-old surnamed Ko, who suffered severe injuries from a weapon wielded by Jang while attempting to help Lee.

Meanwhile, analyzing the interrogation records of former Gwangju National Police Agency Criminal Affairs Division Chief Superintendent Lee—who was summoned as a reference witness yesterday—the National Police Agency Special Investigation Unit is focusing on grasping the National Office of Investigation's command directives at the time.

This is because a core issue to be uncovered by this investigation is the suspicion that although the frontline investigation team repeatedly requested to merge and investigate Jang's sex crime and murder cases, the National Office of Investigation ordered them to investigate the cases separately, ultimately leading to Jang being sent to the prosecution for regular murder instead of rape resulting in murder.

The Special Investigation Unit maintains the position that a direct investigation into Park Sung-ju, the former head of the National Office of Investigation who sits at the pinnacle of the case command structure, is also inevitable.

(Video Editing: Park Sun-su, Design: Cho Su-in)