Two police officers accused of leaking investigative information to the suspect's father, a fellow officer, and helping conceal key evidence in the murder of a high school girl by Jang Yun-gi will go on trial.
Senior Judge Lee Seung-yeon of the Gwangju District Court's Criminal Division 12 will open the first hearing at 3 p.m. on the 14th on charges including aiding the destruction of evidence against a senior inspector identified as A, head of a violent crime team in the criminal investigation division of the Gwangsan Police Station in Gwangju, and a sergeant identified as B, a member of the same team, according to legal sources on the 13th.
Inspector A and Sergeant B were sent to trial on charges of conspiring to return a sport utility vehicle containing cable ties, a key piece of evidence, to the father of Jang, 23, while investigating the killing of the high school student in May. They are also accused of leaving two damaged sex dolls unsecured after finding them during a search of Jang's rented room, thereby helping Jang's father dispose of them.
Inspector A is further accused of omitting video footage of the cable ties, filmed during the search of the SUV, from the case files transferred to prosecutors and of instructing a member of the investigation team to delete the footage.
Sergeant B was found to have repeatedly informed Jang's father, an active-duty police officer and a former colleague, of the status of the investigation, including plans to seek an arrest warrant, whether Jang had admitted to the crime and the seizure of a spare mobile phone handset. Inspector A is also known to have worked at the same district police unit as Jang's father from Feb. 16, 2024, to March 24 last year.
Inspector A said earlier that "the criticism of the botched investigation is entirely of my own making," adding, "I could have sent the evidence that was left out of the case files, but I let the chance slip because I was afraid of disciplinary action or a dishonorable discharge."
The signs of the flawed investigation came to light as prosecutors, who received the case from police on a general murder charge, indicted Jang on a charge of rape and murder after conducting a supplementary investigation.
The prosecution's investigation expanded beyond the front-line team to the police leadership. Prosecutors also indicted four current and former police executives, including Park Sung-joo, 60, the former head of the National Office of Investigation at the Korean National Police Agency, on charges including abuse of authority for ordering that Jang's two related cases — the killing of the high school student and the stalking and rape of a part-time work colleague — be investigated separately.
