South Korea’s opposition-controlled parliament on Wednesday voted to impeach Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min holding him responsible for government failures in disaster planning and the response.
SEOUL, South Korea—South Korea’s opposition-controlled parliament on Wednesday voted to impeach Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min holding him responsible for government failures in disaster planning and the response that likely contributed to the high death toll in a crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in October.
Lee is seen as a key ally of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose office issued an irritated response to his impeachment, accusing opposition lawmakers of abandoning legislative principles and creating “shameful history.” Lee is the first Cabinet minister impeached by the National Assembly, which previously impeached conservative President Park Geun-hye in 2016. The Constitutional Court removed her from office and she was imprisoned for corruption before her liberal successor pardoned her in December 2021.
Following a 74-day inquiry into the incident, a special investigation team led by the National Police Agency concluded that police and public officials in Seoul’s Yongsan district failed to employ meaningful crowd control measures despite anticipating huge gatherings of Halloween revelers. They also ignored pedestrian calls placed to police hotlines that warned of a swelling crowd hours before the surge turned deadly on October 28.
The police investigators said they had closed their probes on Lee’s ministry and the National Police Agency before handing over the case to prosecutors, saying it was difficult to establish the direct responsibility of those offices. Lawmaker Jang Dong-hyuk of Yoon’s People’s Power Party accused the opposition of “tramping on [South Korea’s] constitutional order,” insisting that Lee was impeached without a justifiable cause.
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