Up to 1.5 years in prison

Police officers sentenced for mass panic in Seoul

Two former police officers were sentenced on Wednesday for trying to have internal reports on the mass panic at Halloween celebrations in Seoul 2022 deleted. Even before the disaster, colleagues had warned of an impending stampede.

On the night of October 30, 2022, tens of thousands of predominantly young people crowded into the streets and bars of the Itaewon nightlife district in Seoul (South Korea) without the police intervening. Almost 160 people were killed at the time (see video above).

On Wednesday, a former senior police officer in Seoul was sentenced to one and a half years in prison. An ex-colleague from the Yongsan police station received a one-year prison sentence and a three-year suspended sentence. "The defendants should have actively participated in the investigation by preserving existing data, but instead they deleted internal reports written before the accident and destroyed evidence," the court said.

First police officers convicted
The two officers who have already been suspended are the first police officers to be sentenced for the disaster. So far, only officers from the responsible district office have been held responsible. There have been no resignations so far. The police chief of Seoul was charged in January.