South Korean cop sentenced to 3 years in jail over 2022 Halloween crowd crush

By Efe Ozkan

ISTANBUL (AA) - A court in South Korea on Monday sentenced the former police chief of a district of the capital Seoul to three years in prison without labor over a deadly 2022 crowd crash in the Itaewon nightlife district.

Lee Im-jae, 54, was indicted last year on charges of professional negligence leading to death and injury, following the crowd crush, which claimed 159 lives during Halloween weekend on Oct. 29, 2022, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

"It was either foreseeable or should have been anticipated that a large crowd gathering in the sloped alleyways of Itaewon for Halloween 2022 could pose a serious threat, as pedestrians would be at risk from pushing and crowd pressure," the news agency quoted the court as saying.

The court ruled that the risk was foreseeable, yet he failed to implement necessary safety measures.

In October 2022, 159 people, most of them young, perished in the Itaewon district crowd crush during Halloween festivities.

It marked the country's worst incident of mass death since the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster that killed 304 people, most of them high school students.