Seoul court sentences ex-district police chief over 2022 Halloween crowd crush

Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A Seoul court on Monday sentenced a former district chief of police to three years behind bars without labor over the city's tragic crowd crush of Halloween weekend 2022, that killed 159 people.

The Seoul Western District Court ruled that Lee Im-jae, 54, the then-head of the Yongsan Police Station, had failed to take safety measures, leading to the worst crowd crush in South Korea's history, Yonhap reported.

"It was either foreseen or it could have been anticipated that a large crowd of people gathering in the slanted alleyway in Itaewon for the 2022 Halloween could cause a serious danger to bodies from pedestrians pushing and pressuring each other," the court said, according to the news agency.

Itaewon is one of Seoul's trendy nightlight districts popular among residents hailing from all over the world. On the night of Oct. 29, 2022, as tens of thousands were celebrating Halloween there, merrymakers were funneled down a 10.5-foot-wide downhill alley near the famous Hamilton Hotel, resulting in the crowd crush.

Most of the victims were in their 20 and 30s. Several were non-Korean residents.

The court ruled Monday that Lee had failed to implement a safety plan to avoid the foreseeable tragedy.

In a separate ruling given by the same court Monday, Park Hee-young, Yongsan Ward office chief, and other ward officials who had been indicted in connection to the deaths, were found not guilty as they were not responsible for writing safety plans.

"A crowd crush from a large gathering was not categorized as a disaster under relevant laws at the time, therefore, there were no mandatory regulations that specified the district office to establish separate safety management plans for events without a host," the court ruled, The Korea Herald reported.

During the trial, the defendants claimed that a crowd crush could not have been anticipated while the prosecution argued they failed to fulfill their mandate to prevent foreseeable disasters.

UPI has contacted the Association of Families of Itaewon Disaster for comment.