Police in uproar over Jang Yun-gi case as probe reaches top command

Police and prosecutors raided the National Investigation Headquarters of the Korean National Police Agency late Tuesday in connection with misconduct allegations surrounding the investigation into Jang Yun-gi, who killed Lee Chae-won, a second-year high school student in Gwangju. Investigators suspect that police separated the murder case from a rape that occurred immediately before it, referring Jang on a murder charge alone rather than rape-murder — effectively reducing the charges. Officers who handled the investigation have since claimed the split was ordered by the National Investigation Headquarters, directing the probe toward the top of the police command.

According to police and other sources, the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office executed a search and seizure warrant at the Violent Crime Investigation Division of the National Investigation Headquarters from 6:15 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Prosecutors are believed to have secured mobile phones belonging to headquarters officials during the raid. The headquarters' own special investigation unit also searched the same office from 7:30 a.m. to 11:50 p.m. that day.

As suspicions of a cover-up reached the National Investigation Headquarters, an official from its Violent Crime Investigation Division said Tuesday that the unit had instructed the investigative team to refer the murder case first — attaching records related to the sexual violence investigation — on the grounds that referring both cases simultaneously was not feasible. The official added that the intent behind ordering the split referral was "to ensure investigative completeness in the murder case."

The official also said the investigative team had reported that, while circumstantial evidence existed regarding the sexual motive behind Jang's crime, a determination was difficult given that he denied the allegations. "There were no instructions from the National Investigation Headquarters regarding the confirmation of charges," the official said.

Park, a police inspector who served as head of the criminal investigation division at Gwangju's Gwangsan Police Station during the Jang investigation, has maintained that the murder-only referral was made on orders from the National Investigation Headquarters. Park's legal representative, speaking Tuesday after a pre-detention hearing at Gwangju District Court, said there had been "no outside pressure" but that "the National Investigation Headquarters had instructed us not to combine the murder case and the sex crime case."

Prosecutors are also believed to have obtained materials related to the headquarters' order to separate the investigations through a raid on the Gwangsan station's investigative command. The Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office is understood to have executed a search and seizure warrant on the Korean National Police Agency's internal messaging server on July 15.

The National Investigation Headquarters had initially said it would form a special investigation unit staffed by its own personnel — excluding Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency officers who may have been involved in the Jang investigation — and conduct a neutral probe. As the investigation expands to the headquarters itself, the special unit has said that personnel from the headquarters' criminal affairs bureau are not participating in the investigation.