◀ anchor ▶
Tomorrow will be exactly one year since the late Lieutenant Ye-Ram Lee, a victim of sexual assault in the Air Force, passed away.
The bereaved families who have postponed the funeral to find out the truth hold a memorial service today,
The newly-launched special prosecutor urged them to thoroughly investigate allegations of negligent investigation.
Reporter Kim Se-young reports.
◀ Report ▶
A year has passed, but Sgt. Ye-Ram Lee is still in the mortuary at the funeral home of the Armed Forces Capital Hospital.
Because the family couldn’t hold a funeral.
A memorial service for the 1st anniversary was held in the place that used to be an incense place.
When the mother looked at her daughter’s picture, she collapsed and the father still cannot accept the reality.
[이주완/이 중사 아버지]
“I thought this when I was first commissioned, doesn’t the last photo look like pupils of hope?”
The father hangs his daughter’s dog tag around his neck like a part of his body, and sends a message to his daughter whenever he has time.
Send photos of flowers and share the progress of the incident.
It is a promise that the truth will be revealed and the person responsible will be punished.
[이주완/이 중사 아버지]
“My father will definitely protect our Yeram’s honor…”
Sergeant Lee, who was sexually harassed by his superior in March last year, took his own life two months after suffering from poor investigation and secondary assault.
The Ministry of National Defense Prosecutor’s Office, which started a re-investigation only after Sergeant Lee left, indicted 15 people, but did not prosecute those involved in the allegation of negligent investigation.
In addition, six were acquitted at the first trial.
[강석민/유족 측 변호사]
“The truth of the investigation by the military judicial police and the military prosecutors who seem to have protected the perpetrators, such as by not detaining the perpetrators, should be made clear.”
After a year of fighting, the responsibility for finding the truth has now passed on to the recently appointed Special Prosecutor Ahn Mi-young.
Although there was controversy that the special prosecutor defended the perpetrators of sexual violence in the past, the father of the sergeant major said that he would trust and watch the special prosecutor.
[이주완/이 중사 아버지]
“(As a lawyer at the time) I did my best to do my job, and I thought that it was showing my ability at a law firm…”
The Special Prosecutor’s Office is expected to focus its investigative powers on the investigation into the suspicion of negligent investigation by the military police and military prosecutors of the 20th Wing, who initially investigated the case, and the suspicion of systematic secondary perpetrators.
This is Kim Se-young from MBC News.
Video coverage: Lee Kwan-ho / Video editing: Oh Yu-rim
MBC News awaits your report 24 hours a day.
▷ Tel 02-784-4000
▷ Email mbcjebo@mbc.co.kr
▷ KakaoTalk @mbc report
