Itaewon disaster: Ex-health center chief gets suspended sentence again for falsifying arrival time

Choi Jae-won, the former head of the Yongsan Public Health Center, has been sentenced to a suspended prison term in a retrial for falsifying his arrival time at the scene of the Itaewon crowd crush. The Seoul Western District Court's Criminal Appeals Division 2-2 upheld the first trial's sentence of 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered 160 hours of community service.

Cho was indicted in March 2023 for allegedly backdating his arrival time on five incident reports related to the Itaewon disaster response. He was accused of falsifying the records to appear as if he arrived earlier than he actually did.

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Although the defendant claims the Itaewon disaster dispatch and work report was for internal use, the reports were titled 'Certificate' or 'Report,' and generally, certificates and reports are prepared when proof is needed for external audits or reporting to administrative agencies.

The appellate court dismissed Choi's defense that the reports were merely internal documents. The court stated that reports titled "Certificate" or "Report" are typically prepared for external audits or reporting to authorities, making the claim of purely internal use unlikely, especially given the unusual titles used. The court also rejected Choi's argument that he was unaware of the falsification of the '23:30 on-site arrival' time, stating that the first trial had sufficiently addressed this point.

However, the court did not accept the prosecution's claim that Choi had ordered some of his staff to falsify the report details. The court found no new circumstances warranting a change in the sentence, deeming the original sentence to be within a reasonable range. The prosecution's appeal was dismissed.

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Regarding the claim that the defendant was unaware that the '23:30 on-site arrival' stated in the official document was false, the original trial court had already sufficiently deliberated on this point.