Foreign Victim Assaulted at Hongdae Club... Prosecution to Identify Real Culprit After Supplementary Investigation

The prosecution has sent a 20-year-old club employee to trial without detention for assaulting a foreigner at a Hongdae club. Earlier, the police had sent two club employees to the prosecution as suspects for assaulting the foreigner, but supplementary investigations revealed that they were not guilty.

On the 13th, the Criminal Division 4 of the Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Yoo Hyo-je) announced that the day before, they had indicted club employee A in his 20s without detention on charges of joint injury under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes.

A is accused of assaulting a 30-year-old foreign university student of Guatemalan nationality along with an unidentified individual on October 29 last year. The victim suffered injuries requiring five weeks of medical treatment, including a fractured nasal bone. The accomplice has not yet been apprehended.

On April 9, the police reported to the prosecution that two club employees, not A, were suspects in the assault. The prosecution executed search and communication warrants four times and, through investigations of the victim and related parties, identified A as the true perpetrator. The two suspects sent by the police were cleared of charges.

A prosecution official stated, "We have faithfully fulfilled our role as a human rights protection agency by actively conducting supplementary investigations to identify the true perpetrator," and added, "Considering the method of the crime and the serious injuries of the victim, we will do our best to maintain the prosecution so that a sentence commensurate with the crime can be imposed."