Police officer admits to leaking investigation report into late actor Lee Sun-kyun
A police officer is escorted from Suwon Nambu Police Station in Suwon, Gyeoggi Province, to attend a court hearing for an arrest warrant on March 23, over suspicions of leaking investigation information regarding alleged drug use involving late actor Lee Sun-kyun. Yonhap
A senior police officer has admitted to leaking information on a drug investigation into late actor Lee Sun-kyun, who took his own life late last year, a court said Saturday.
The Suwon District Court in the namesake city south of Seoul revealed the fact as it decided not to grant an arrest warrant request filed against the senior police officer from the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency in connection with an investigation into the leak.
Earlier this week, police detained the officer on suspicions of leaking a report compiled by the Incheon police agency's drug investigation unit in mid-October regarding a drug investigation involving Lee. He reportedly wasn't a member of the drug investigation unit.
The report included private information of people connected to Lee's drug suspicions, including names, criminal records and professions, and an entertainment news outlet carried a photo of the document in late December.
"Given that the suspect has admitted to his crime and key evidence has been collected, the necessity for arrest is not recognized," the court said Saturday, denying an arrest warrant filed to further detain him for investigation.
How the officer gained access to the inside report and to whom it was leaked are currently under investigation. The Incheon police agency relieved him of his duties immediately after he was detained.
Lee, best known for his role in "Parasite," was found dead in his car in central Seoul on Dec. 27, days after he publicly appeared before the police for the third round of questioning on suspicions of using marijuana and other illegal drugs on multiple occasions.
Lee's death raised questions about whether the police compelled him to stand on the press photo line before his questioning sessions and whether Lee deserved the privacy-infringing media reports that followed the investigation.
A group of filmmakers, actors and artists, including "Parasite" director Bong Joon-ho, have called for a probe into whether there was any fault in the security of the police's handling of the information. (Yonhap)