By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
Prosecutors Thursday raided Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, Namdaemun Police Station and Taepyeongno District Police Station as part of their investigation into allegations that police attempted to cover up Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn's revenge attack.
It is the first time for the prosecution to conduct a large-scale raid of police stations. In the past, these were restricted largely to cases dealing bribery or corruption and were usually on individual police officers homes.
Around 11 a.m. on Thursday, the prosecution dispatched investigators to the three sites and seized related documents, computer hard drives and other records.
The move came after suspicions were raised that police had either attempted to cover up Kim¡¯s case or to delay the investigation into it after high-ranking police officials were bribed by Hanhwa.
Though the incident involving the chairman¡¯s assault on six men in a revenge attack following a brawl involving his younger son occurred on March 8, the actual investigation into Kim was delayed long after it was first reported to the police through an emergency call center on the day of the incident.
The prosecution is looking to see if there was an order from a high level official to cover up Kim's alleged crime and delay the investigation in his favor.
Meanwhile, the prosecution on Wednesday started to track down the phone call records of five key police officials from March 8 to May 11, the period between when the assault took place and Kim was arrested, after obtaining court approval.
``The investigation has just begun from scratch, which is why we started investigating the three places where the Kim¡¯s case was first dealt with and are busy tracking down the phone call records,¡¯¡¯ a prosecutor said.
The prosecution will finish examining collected evidence by the end of this week and will summon key figures for questioning next week, he said, suggesting that the prosecution will summon high-ranking police officials.
e3dward@koreatimes.co.kr |
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