By Na Jeong-ju
Staff reporter
President Lee Myung-bak called for stern legal action, Tuesday, against the police officers who reportedly tortured criminal suspects during an interrogation and erased surveillance camera footage of their violence.
"Torture is unacceptable under any circumstance," Lee said during a weekly Cabinet meeting, according to his spokesman Park Sun-kyoo. "Korea cannot become an advanced, top-level country when the human rights of its people are ignored."
He instructed Cabinet to deal sternly with the officers in accordance with the law, if they are found guilty, the spokesman said.
The National Human Rights Commission said last week it received petitions from at least 22 suspects, mostly charged with theft and narcotics use, that they had been gagged and beaten while being questioned at the Yangcheon Police Station in western Seoul.
The petitioners claimed that they were forced to admit to their crimes with their arms handcuffed behind their backs and twisted by detectives.
Based on the claims, prosecutors had opened an investigation and said last week that they would seek arrest warrants for five police officers on suspicions of torture and manipulation of investigation records.