South Korea Halloween crush: police officials jailed over 'man-made' tragedy
30/9/2024 19:04
A South Korean court on Monday sentenced the former police chief of a district of Seoul to three years in prison for a botched response to a deadly Halloween crowd crush in the capital's Itaewon nightlife district in 2022. Yongsan police station chief Lee Im-jae is the first senior police official to be convicted over the crush, which led to 159 deaths nearly two years ago. Lee had failed to prepare for a mass Halloween gathering whose dangers he should have foreseen, thus creating the conditions for the Itaewon tragedy, the Seoul Western District Court said in a statement. The Itaewon deaths shocked a nation still scarred by the 2014 sinking of a ferry, the Sewol, that killed 304 people including 250 children on a school trip.
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