AP – 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.
The impeachment suspends Lee from his duties and the Constitutional Court has 180 days to rule on whether to unseat him for good or give him back the job.
Vice Minister Han Chang-seob will be acting minister until the Constitutional Court decides on Lee’s fate.
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 expressed regret after lawmakers voted 179-109 to impeach him, and he said he would defend his case in the Constitutional Court. “(I) hope that the vacuum in public safety (management) created by this unprecedented situation would be minimised,” Lee said in his statement. 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.
Lee’s impeachment came weeks after police announced they are seeking criminal charges, including involuntary manslaughter and negligence, against 23 officials, about half of them law enforcement officers, for a lack of safety measures they said were responsible for the crowd crush in Itaewon, a major nightlife district in Seoul.
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.
Officials also botched their response once people began getting toppled over and crushed in a narrow alley clogged with partygoers near Hamilton Hotel around 10pm, failing to establish effective control of the scene and allow rescue workers to reach the injured in time.
