Jang Mi-ran, 37, who went missing in Jeju Island. [Provided by the family]
Jang Mi-ran, 37, who went missing in Jeju Island. [Provided by the family]

Police did not request closed-circuit television footage from Jeju Island authorities in connection with the disappearance of Jang Mi-ran, 37, until roughly three months after the missing-person report was filed, it has emerged.

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon requested data from Jeju Island on a total of 118 CCTV cameras, only to find that footage from the time of the disappearance had already been deleted, Yonhap reported Sunday. The cameras include 111 crime-prevention units in the Hallim-eup area where Jang was last seen, as well as seven traffic-monitoring cameras operated by the Jeju Island autonomous police unit's traffic information center.

Footage covering May 12 through May 20 — a period that includes the estimated date of disappearance, May 13 — no longer exists. Jeju Island authorities said the recordings were automatically deleted between June 11 and June 19 in accordance with the cameras' 30-day retention period.

The Jeju Western Police Station sent an official request to Jeju Island to review the crime-prevention CCTV footage only on Wednesday — 98 days after the estimated date of disappearance and 96 days after the initial missing-person report was filed on May 15, well past the point at which the footage could have been preserved.

"The CCTV footage that could have provided clues to the whereabouts of Jang Mi-ran, who went missing in Jeju, was lost because an officer closed the case," Han said. "When the initial report was filed on May 15, all 118 cameras still had their footage intact and it was entirely possible to secure it."

Han then criticized the Democratic Party over changes to the criminal justice system. "The criminal justice system was not designed on the assumption that every investigator would be competent and diligent," he said. "Because of that limitation, multiple layers of safeguards were put in place — one of the most important being the supplementary investigation authority. The Democratic Party dismantled that safeguard without offering any alternative. Ultimately, the mechanism for catching poor initial investigations is gone, and the price is paid by victims and their families."


park.jiyeong@heraldcorp.com