[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] Officials of Bitgwa Jinri Church located in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, who forced congregants to ingest feces and committed other cruel acts under the pretext of faith training, have been brought to trial.
The Criminal Division 3 of the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Jeong-ryeol) announced on the 10th that it has indicted the church's senior pastor Kim Mo (61) without detention on charges of aiding and abetting coercion and violating the Act on the Establishment, Operation, and Private Tutoring of Academies, for subjecting church members to cruel acts under the guise of faith training. Training instructors and leaders A (43) and B (46), who directly committed the cruel acts, were also brought to trial on coercion charges.
The prosecution decided not to indict on charges of professional negligence causing injury related to a congregant who suffered cerebral hemorrhage and sequelae during training, and on charges of breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes against Kim, due to lack of evidence.
Kim is accused of neglecting the cruel acts committed against congregants while overseeing the training from May 2017 to October of the following year. He is reported to have devised and implemented this training for the first time and emphasized its execution regularly through sermons and other means. Kim is also charged with establishing and operating an unregistered academy from March 2016 to April 2020.
A, who served as a training instructor for leader selection, is accused of coercing a congregant participating in the training in May 2018 to eat feces and record and send a video of it by threatening to impose disadvantages. From June to October of the same year, he also forced victims to walk about 40 km and subjected them to physical punishment. B similarly committed such cruel acts in November 2017 and forced congregants to endure a kiln, be beaten, and other harsh treatments.
This case came to light when church members revealed that the church routinely demanded sadistic acts such as eating their own feces, taking turns being beaten, enduring a kiln, and praying in a cemetery to build courage, all under the pretext of leadership training.
The victims filed a complaint with the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office in April last year, accusing the church of professional negligence causing injury and other charges. The prosecution referred the case to the Dongdaemun Police Station for investigation supervision. In February, the police sent the case back to the prosecution with a recommendation for indictment without detention.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
