Senior South Korean Police Officer Sentenced to 3 Years Over Crowd Crush

Lee Im-jae, a former district chief, is the most senior official to be convicted in connection with the 2022 disaster that killed nearly 160 Halloween partygoers.

A Seoul court sentenced a senior police officer to​ three years in prison on Monday, ​convicting him of contributing through negligence to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in 2022 in one of South Korea’s worst peacetime disasters.

Lee Im-jae, the former chief of police in Yongsan District, the area in central Seoul where the disaster happened, was the most senior police officer to be ​found guilty of a crime related to the shocking tragedy.

Victims’ families remain deeply unsatisfied and angry with the government’s investigation into the deadly crowd crush. Prosecutors have indicted a total of 23 people, mostly middle-ranking police and civilian officials. So far a handful have been convicted, with the longest sentence being handed to Mr. Lee.

But on Monday, the district court acquitted Park Hee-young, the elected mayor of Yongsan District, of criminal negligence, allowing her to continue in office.

The most senior official indicted — Kim Kwang-ho, the former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency — is on​ trial on criminal charges similar to the ones Mr. Lee faced.

On the evening of Oct. 29, 2022, thousands of young people packed into Itaewon, a popular neighborhood for nightlife in Yongsan, to enjoy the first post-pandemic, restriction-free Halloween weekend in Seoul. Hundreds jammed into a narrow and sloping alleyway from both ends, creating a deadly squeeze in the middle.

Few police officers were on hand to control the crowd, even though the authorities had ample advance warning of the likelihood of an unusually large crowd and ​safety risks. As the crowd crush was developing, caller after panicked caller from the scene rang police and fire department hotlines to describe a lack of crowd control and ​people suffocating. But help was slow to arrive, although the nearest police station was only 430 feet away.

​Sentencing Mr. Lee to prison on Monday, the western district court in Seoul said the danger in Itaewon was “predictable.” Mr. Lee, the three-judge panel ruled, failed to take precautionary measures, such as assigning crowd and traffic control officers around Itaewon on the night the disaster happened.

Mr. Lee, who was dismissed from his post in the wake of the tragedy, has denied criminal negligence. On Monday, he told reporters that he respected the court’s ruling but did not clarify whether he would appeal.

Also on Monday, the former Yongsan police officer in charge of handling emergency calls was sentenced to two years in prison for criminal negligence. Another officer was also convicted of the same charge, but his prison term was suspended.

The court acquitted three other Yongsan officials, saying that controlling the crowd in Itaewon was not the direct responsibility of the Yongsan district office.

Investigators have blamed the police and other government agencies for failing to take precautionary measures to prevent the disaster and for bungling rescue operations.

In February, three former police officers were found guilty of destroying evidence indicating that the police had been aware of the safety risks at the Halloween festivities.​

The government inquiry cleared the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the National Police Agency and the home ministry, which oversees the police and fire department, of any wrongdoing. In May, the National Assembly passed a law that mandated another investigation to be led by an independent panel.

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