Former Seoul Police Agency Intelligence Chief Sentenced to 1 Year and 6 Months for Deleting Itaewon Disaster Report

Former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Public Safety Information and Foreign Affairs Division Chief Park Seong-min, who was prosecuted for ordering the deletion of the Halloween information report immediately after the 2022 Itaewon disaster, was sentenced to imprisonment.

Former Director of Public Safety Information and Foreign Affairs Division, Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, Park Sung-min. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

The Criminal Division 11 of the Seoul Western District Court (Presiding Judge Bae Seong-jung) sentenced former Chief Park to 1 year and 6 months in prison on the 14th for charges of instructing evidence destruction and damaging public electronic records.

Kim Jin-ho, former head of the Intelligence Division at Yongsan Police Station, who was also prosecuted, was sentenced to 1 year in prison with a 3-year probation. Kwak, a former intelligence officer at Yongsan Police Station, who was accused of deleting the report under their orders, received a suspended sentence.

The court stated, "The defendants, as members of the police organization, had the responsibility to sincerely cooperate with investigations and audits by actively disclosing and submitting existing materials. However, the defendants arbitrarily destroyed electronic records and consequently caused the destruction of evidence in disciplinary cases, endangering the national criminal justice function, making it impossible not to impose severe punishment."

However, the court took into consideration as mitigating factors that the deleted reports amounted to only four volumes, which was not a large quantity, and that the investigative agencies had already secured the materials. Regarding Officer Kwak, the court judged the offense to be minor based on his admission of the crime, remorse, and the difficulty of disobeying repeated orders from superiors.

Former Chief Park and former Division Chief Kim are accused of ordering frontline intelligence chiefs to delete four documents, including the "Itaewon Halloween Festival Public Safety Risk Analysis" report and the Special Reconnaissance Intelligence (SRI) report, in preparation for police investigations following the Itaewon disaster. Previously, the prosecution sought sentences of 3 years imprisonment each for former Chief Park and former Division Chief Kim, and 1 year imprisonment for Officer Kwak.