A South Korean police officer is alleged to have wrongly closed several missing persons cases, with fatal consequences.
The Yonhap news agency reported that the National Police Agency is to re-examine all the approximately 310,000 missing persons cases that have been closed over the past three years.
In response, Prime Minister Han Seong Sook called on Thursday for a fundamental reform of the police force.
The police officer, who worked on the island of Jeju, has been arrested. He is alleged to have prematurely closed at least two cases where the missing persons were later found dead.
The case of a 37-year-old woman who was reported missing in May is particularly serious. The officer had claimed to have spoken to her on the phone and checked that she was safe. However, investigators found no record of such a call on either the woman’s mobile phone or that of the police officer.
The officer is also said to have called off the search for a missing man in his 60s at the beginning of July. He justified this by saying that the man had not wanted to meet with the police. The man was also later found dead.
The case has sparked a nationwide debate about the oversight of police work, with widespread shock that the officer’s alleged misconduct had apparently gone unnoticed.
The police are reviewing the 298 cases he handled for possible further instances of premature closure.