Inspector A, the former head of the detective division at Gwangsan Police Station who is suspected of ordering investigators to handle the murder and sex crime cases in the Jang Yun-gi case separately, arrives at the Gwangju District Court in Jisan-dong, Dong-gu, on Tuesday for a pre-arrest hearing. [Yonhap]
Inspector A, the former head of the detective division at Gwangsan Police Station who is suspected of ordering investigators to handle the murder and sex crime cases in the Jang Yun-gi case separately, arrives at the Gwangju District Court in Jisan-dong, Dong-gu, on Tuesday for a pre-arrest hearing. [Yonhap]

A court has rejected an arrest warrant for the former head of the detective division at Gwangju's Gwangsan Police Station, who had been identified as responsible for the botched investigation into the Jang Yun-gi case.

Judge Choi Yun-young of the Gwangju District Court, who oversees warrant reviews, conducted a pre-arrest hearing Tuesday and rejected the warrant sought against Inspector A of the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency on charges of abuse of authority and dereliction of duty.

Judge Choi determined that the materials submitted so far were insufficient to establish the necessity of detention.

Inspector A was booked on suspicion of mishandling the investigation while serving as head of the detective division at Gwangsan Police Station in May, when Jang Yun-gi, 23, killed Lee Chae-won, 16, a second-year high school student.

He also faces allegations that he failed to fulfill his duties as the officer in charge by separating Jang's additional stalking and sexual assault case from the main inquiry and transferring it to another unit rather than handling it jointly.

At the time, police sent Jang to prosecutors on a charge of simple murder — which carries a sentence of five years or more in prison — rather than murder with intent to rape, which carries a minimum sentence of life imprisonment.

Rank-and-file officers who worked on the Jang Yun-gi investigation have argued that their findings reflected directives from the Korean National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters.

The National Investigation Headquarters' special investigation unit and the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office conducted simultaneous search and seizure operations Tuesday morning at divisions within the headquarters, continuing their probe into allegations of investigative misconduct in the Jang Yun-gi case.


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