hankyoreh

By Hong Yong-duk, south Gyeonggi correspondent

Five of the seven USFK military police officers questioned by prosecutors over the handcuffing of civilians in Pyeongtaek last July were confirmed to have left the country recently.

According to accounts released on Mar. 9 by Pyeongtaek Police station and the local branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office, each of the five departed South Korea separately since late 2012. Reasons for their departure applications reportedly included the end of one MP’s one-year period of service in South Korea, and the illness of the wife of another.

Prosecutors said the charges against them did not warrant a ban on their leaving the country, adding that they received confirmation from USFK that the MPs would present themselves as demanded.

“We’re not expecting any problems in our investigation,” the prosecutors said.

Responding to criticisms of their failure to produce any findings in the seven months since they received the case from police in August, a source with the prosecutors said the investigation was “going smoothly,” citing the fact that the MPs gave testimony to them after previously exercising their right to refuse to do so before police.

Last year, a furor erupted after the seven MPs handcuffed three civilians, including a 36-year-old identified by the surname Yang, at around 8 pm on July 5 after a parking dispute on Rodeo Road near the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek.

Yu Yeong-jae, who heads the USFK issues team for the group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea, said the police and prosecutors’ decision to allow the MPs to leave the country without concern for the South Korean victims “shows that they have no intention of asserting their judicial sovereignty.”

Yu also compared the response to the one taken after a recent disturbance by USFK soldiers in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on Mar. 2, which resulted in injuries.

“Time and time again, the South Korean government has given USFK time to destroy evidence and manipulate things by arguing that it can’t have the suspects handed over,” Yu said. “The result is always the same thing: the investigation comes to nothing.”

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