'Truth almost buried': Busan spinning-kick victim questions move to strip prosecutors of supplementary investigation powers

The victim in the Busan spinning-kick case has raised serious concerns about a proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act that would abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers. The victim, identified only by her surname Kim, said it was precisely that supplementary investigation that revealed the attack — initially classified as a random assault — had in fact been carried out with the intent to rape, and criticized the reform process for excluding the voices of crime victims.

"A safeguard that allows someone to take an objective second look at a case is absolutely necessary," Kim said Sunday. "If supplementary investigation powers are eliminated as well, where are crime victims supposed to find another chance to confirm the truth of what happened to them?"

The Busan spinning-kick case became a landmark example of how prosecutors' supplementary investigation can fundamentally change the established facts of a crime. What was initially reported as a random assault was later found to have been a sexually motivated attack.

The incident occurred in May 2022 in the Seomyeon area of Busanjin-gu, Busan, when the perpetrator, identified only by his surname Lee, attacked Kim without warning as she was returning home. Police forwarded the case on charges of serious bodily harm, but prosecutors upgraded the charges to attempted murder, and Lee was sentenced to 12 years in prison at trial.

During the appeals process, however, new evidence emerged suggesting the attack had been an attempted rape-murder.

Key evidence submitted included CCTV footage from the scene, testimony from responding officers, and the jeans Kim had been wearing at the time.

Lee's DNA was found on the inside of the jeans — a pair designed in a way that made them difficult to remove on their own.

Prosecutors then amended the charges from attempted murder to attempted rape-murder.

The appeals court found Lee guilty of the sex crime charges, ruling that "the defendant committed the crime by targeting the victim for sexual violence," and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

A court later ruled in Kim's favor in a state compensation lawsuit she filed over the inadequate initial investigation.

Kim has become one of the most prominent crime victims to personally experience the necessity of prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers.

She said her case was "a prime example of how much the truth of an incident can change depending on an investigator's will and determination."

"Faced with the same pair of jeans, one person found nothing, while another uncovered the truth through sheer persistence," she said. "If police had investigated properly from the outset, I might have recovered more quickly and felt less of a threat to my life."

"I want to ask those officers: could you not have paid just a little more attention?" she added. "If I had not been forced to step forward myself, I would not be living now in constant fear of not knowing when I might die."

"Even now, this is the reality we live in — if prosecutors' supplementary investigation function disappears on top of everything else, where will crime victims find another opportunity to have their cases examined again?" Kim said.

Kim also said crime victims' voices had been excluded from the debate over abolishing the supplementary investigation powers.

"They claim to be acting in the interest of victims, yet throughout the prosecution reform process, victims' opinions have not been properly heard even once," she said. "No one explains what will change for victims' rights if supplementary investigation powers are abolished, or how the resulting harm will be addressed."