용산철거민 선고공판

Today's Hankyoreh reports following:

Seoul Central District Court finds

Yongsan Tragedy defendants guilty

The Seoul Central District Court has found all nine defendants in the Yongsan redevelopment tragedy case guilty for the deaths of six people.

The 27th Criminal Negotiations Division of Seoul Central District Court sentenced two protesters, including Lee Chung-yeon, 36-years-old and a leader of an association of Yongsan residents who were refusing eviction, to six years in prison and another five protesters, including a Mr. Kim, to five years on charges of killing a SWAT officer by tossing a Molotov cocktail at flammable materials. Another defendant was sentenced to three years in prison with a four year suspended sentence, and the last one was sentenced to two years in prison with a three year suspended sentence. Three of the nine defendants, including Mr. Kim, who had been indicted without detention, were remanded into custody upon receiving prison sentences.

The core point of contention between prosecutors and defendants was the cause of the fire that took the lives of the six victims. Prosecutors have said they are unable to name a specific person, but a Molotov cocktail thrown by one of the protesters was the cause of the fire. They charged all of the protesters with joint principal conspiracy to obstruct the SWAT officers. Joint principal conspiracy is an offense that imputes responsibility on all those who planned a crime, and is typically applied in seeking punishment against organized crime rings.

In response, the defendants’ attorney challenged that since the inside of the guard tower was at the time so full of flammable mist from the fuel additive Cenox that even the SWAT officers were in a hallucinatory state, the fire could have been caused by static electricity. He said that not one SWAT officer witnessed a Molotov cocktail at the time of the fire, and to impute responsibility for the fire on the defendants was excessive.　

The Seoul Central District Court, however, was satisfied with all of the material presented to ground all of the prosecutors’ charges, including the description of how one of the protesters threw Molotov cocktails inside the guard tower when the first SWAT team attempted to enter the building, prior to the blaze, and video footage showing a spark, seemingly from a Molotov cocktail, dropping from the third floor to the first. The court also accepted photographs from the National Institute of Scientific Investigation (NISI) showing that electrical switches were off at the time, and results from an on-sight inspection that states slivers of glass melted into the guard tower stairs and substantiates singling out a Molotov cocktail as the cause of the fire.

The court also gave police officers a pass on their operation to quell the protest. The defendants’ attorney argued that for the SWAT officers to raid the site the morning after the protest started without even a single round of negotiations was unjust, but the court reiterated the logic of prosecutors and police, and said that the actions to quell the situation that was unraveling in the middle of the city were justified. The court also imputed responsibility for the lack of negotiations on the residents by saying they put forth unacceptable conditions such as a police withdrawal while the police offered to negotiate.

In a press conference, Jo Hee-ju, the joint chairperson of the association of Yongsan residents refusing eviction, said the Seoul Central District Court’s acceptance of not just the charge of obstructing SWAT officers, but all of the prosecutors’ charges was an abandonment of legal justice, and that they would immediately appeal and do their best to reveal the facts of the case in a court room once again.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/384689.html

The court adds fuel to Yongsan inferno (Hankyoreh cartoon)

The banner on the building reads “Secure redevelopment profits”