A Seoul court on Monday sentenced a former chief of the Yongsan Police Station to three years in prison without labor over the deadly 2022 crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon district, saying the danger was foreseeable, but he failed to take safety measures.

Lee Im-jae, 54, was indicted last year on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury after South Korea’s worst-ever crowd crush left 159 people dead on Halloween weekend in the Itaewon nightlife district on Oct. 29, 2022.

“It was either foreseen or it could have been anticipated that a large crowd of people gathering at the slanted alleyway in Itaewon for the 2022 Halloween could cause a serious danger to bodies from pedestrians pushing and pressuring each other,” the court said.

Yongsan Ward Office chief Park Hee-young was also indicted on similar charges. Her sentencing was scheduled for later Monday.

The prosecution has claimed the defendants failed to follow through on their rights and duty to prevent the disaster although accide
nts from large crowds were foreseeable, and demanded seven-year prison terms for both Lee and Park.

The defendants, however, maintained during the entirety of the trial that such a large-scale crowd crush could not have been anticipated beforehand, therefore they had no liability for the incident.

Lee and Park were also charged with falsely stating in official documents the time they arrived at the scene in an apparent attempt to avoid criticism they failed to respond properly to the tragedy.

Twenty-three people, including two corporations, have been indicted so far in connection to the tragedy.

Source: Yonhap News Agency