Sangmin Lee: "It is a file of the deceased, not a list of bereaved families"
Opposition: "Does it make sense that the Ministry of the Interior and Safety didn't know?"
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] At the second hearing of the National Assembly's special investigation into the Itaewon disaster, the ruling and opposition parties exchanged sharp arguments over whether the Ministry of the Interior and Safety received the list of bereaved families from the Seoul Metropolitan Government immediately after the disaster.
At the hearing held at the National Assembly that day, opposition members of the special investigation committee criticized Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min's statement during the on-site investigation on the 27th of last month that "I have never received the list of bereaved families from the Seoul Metropolitan Government" as 'perjury,' and Minister Lee continued to explain. Earlier, the Seoul Metropolitan Government had stated in the second institutional report of the special investigation committee on the 29th of last month that it shared the status data of the deceased with contact information of the bereaved families with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety three times, leading to conflicting statements.
Justice Party lawmaker Jang Hye-young asked Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, "Did the Seoul Metropolitan Government provide the Ministry of the Interior and Safety with the list of deceased including the names and contact information of the bereaved families?" to which Mayor Oh replied, "Yes."
Minister Lee then said, "Mayor Oh's statement that the Seoul Metropolitan Government sent the list of bereaved families to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety is true. The mistake was on the Ministry's part," explaining, "The Excel file of the deceased list sent by the Seoul Metropolitan Government had the bereaved families' list attached at the end, but when the Ministry received the Seoul data, the staff did not see it. When the issue arose during the Budget and Accounts Special Committee inquiry, upon rechecking, they only then realized that the bereaved families' list was included."
In response, lawmaker Jang said, "The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said they received contact through the One-Stop Support Center," and rebutted, "Saying in the inquiry by Democratic Party lawmaker Kwon Chil-seung that only the Seoul Metropolitan Government had the bereaved families' list is perjury." She added, "Earlier, it was said that they could not contact because the Seoul Metropolitan Government did not provide the list. The dispute over the bereaved families' list is nonsense from the start. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety should have it because they are supposed to support the bereaved families," criticizing the Ministry.
Lawmaker Kwon also pointed out, "On October 31, after the disaster, Daejeon and Hwaseong City also knew the information of the bereaved families," and questioned, "The information was passed down to local governments through the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, so does it make sense that the Ministry did not know?"
In response, People Power Party lawmaker Cho Soo-jin summarized through questioning, "To clarify once again, what the Ministry of the Interior and Safety received was the status of the deceased," and added, "The data exchanged between the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Ministry was the list of deceased, not the list of bereaved families, so the witness probably caused confusion."
Minister Lee also explained again, "What we received from the Seoul Metropolitan Government three times was the 'status file of the deceased,'" and added, "At the very end of that file, only about 65 out of a total of 132 bereaved families were listed, so it was incomplete information."
He further added, "I regarded that as a file of the deceased," and said, "At least to call it a 'list of bereaved families,' there should be names and contact information, but we still do not have it in an organized form."
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