SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court gave three police officers prison sentences on Monday over their botched handling of a 2022 Halloween crush in a Seoul nightlife district that killed nearly 160 people.
It was the first conviction of officials over the failure by authorities to prevent or adequately respond to the overcrowding that occurred in the popular Itaewon district. No top-level officials have been charged or held accountable, prompting criticism from bereaved families and opposition politicians.
The crush, one of the biggest peacetime disasters in South Korea, caused a nationwide outpouring of grief. The victims, who were mostly in their 20s and 30s, had gathered in Itaewon for Halloween celebrations.
The Seoul Western District Court sentenced Lee Im-jae, the former chief of Seoul’s Yongsan police station, whose jurisdiction includes Itaewon, to three years in prison. It sentenced another Yongsan police officer to two years in prison and gave a third officer a suspended two-year term.
The three officers were convicted of professional negligence resulting in death. The court ruled that the crush wasn’t a natural disaster and could have been prevented or the toll reduced if the three officers had prepared properly for the crowd, alerted others of the danger quickly and supervised other police officers appropriately.
The police officers and prosecutors can both appeal the ruling.
The court also ruled that Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan ward office, and three other ward officials were not guilty. It said a ward office was unlikely to have a legal right to control or break up a crowd of people.
Bereaved family members criticized the acquittal of Park and the other ward officials.
“Does this make sense? We can't really accept this,” Lee Jeong-min, a representative of the families, told reporters.
In early 2023, a police special investigation concluded that police and municipal officials had failed to formulate effective crowd control measures despite anticipating a huge number of people in Itaewon. Investigators said police also ignored hotline calls by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds before the surge turned deadly.
Bereaved family members of the victims of the Halloween crush in 2022 react at the Seoul Western District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (Kim Geun-soo/Newsis via AP)
Bereaved family members of the victims of the Halloween crush in 2022 react at the Seoul Western District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (Kim Geun-soo/Newsis via AP)
BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah's acting leader vowed Monday to keep battling Israel and said the Lebanese militant group was prepared for a long fight even after much of its top command was wiped out, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Israeli strikes have killed Nasrallah and six of his top commanders and officials in the last 10 days, and have hit what the military says are thousands of militant targets across large parts of Lebanon. Over 1,000 people have been killed in the country in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
Early Monday, an airstrike hit a residential building in central Beirut, wiping out one apartment, damaging others, and killing three Palestinian militants, as Israel appeared to send a clear message that no part of Lebanon is out of bounds.
Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah has suffered in recent weeks, acting leader Naim Kassem said in a televised statement that if Israel decides to launch a ground offensive, the group's fighters are ready. He said the commanders killed have already been replaced.
“Israel was not able to affect our (military) capabilities,” Kassem said in a televised statement, the first time any senior Hezbollah figure has been seen since Nasrallah was killed. “There are deputy commanders and there are replacements in case a commander is wounded in any post.”
He added that Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a stalemate in their monthlong war in 2006, anticipated “the battle could be long.”
A founding member of the militant group who had been Nasrallah’s longtime deputy, Kassem will remain in his acting position until the group’s leadership elects a replacement. The man widely expected to take over the top post is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah’s political affairs.
Hezbollah has significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week to several hundred daily, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas. Several people have been wounded in Israel. There have been no fatalities since two soldiers were killed near the border on Sept. 19.
But Hezbollah’s capabilities remain unclear.
As recently as two weeks ago, a strike like Monday's in central Beirut — outside of the main areas where Hezbollah operates and next to a busy transportation hub normally crowded with buses, taxis and vans — would have been seen as a major escalation and likely followed by a long-range Hezbollah strike into Israel.
But the unspoken rules of the long-running conflict no longer seem to be in effect.
It's possible that Hezbollah is holding back to save resources for a bigger battle, including a threatened Israeli ground invasion. But the militant group might also be in disarray after Israeli intelligence apparently penetrated its highest levels.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meeting with Israeli troops on Monday, said Israel would “use all the capabilities we have,” hinting at a ground operation. “You are part of this effort,” he added.
In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence — including the massive strike on Friday that killed Nasrallah — but had not hit locations closer to the city center.
The strike early Monday killed three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, leftist faction that has not been meaningfully involved in months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has not claimed the strike but is widely assumed to have carried it out.
Also Monday, Hamas announced that its top commander in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif, was killed with his family in an airstrike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre. The Israeli military confirmed that it had targeted him.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into northern Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack from Gaza into Israel sparked the war in the Palestinian territory. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies and both supported by Iran, and Hezbollah said it would continue the attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians until there was a cease-fire in Gaza.
Israel responded to the rockets with airstrikes in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, and the fighting has steadily escalated over the past year. The Lebanese government says the fighting may have displaced up to a million people, although the U.N. estimate is around 200,000.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have also been displaced. Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the attacks stop and its citizens can return to their homes.
The United States and its allies have called for a cease-fire, hoping to avoid further escalation that could draw in Iran and set off a wider war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown little interest, as his country racks up military achievements against a longtime foe.
Some Israelis broke into spontaneous celebrations after Nasrallah’s death was announced. Videos circulated of crowds at bars singing a song in Hebrew mocking him. A news anchor on a pro-Netanyahu station sang and danced as the studio audience joined in with him while a commentator on Israel’s largest TV station offered co-panelists celebratory shots.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the country is committed to an immediate cease-fire followed by the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south, in keeping with a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war but was never fully implemented.
Mikati spoke after meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. France, which has close ties to Lebanon, has joined the United States in calling for a cease-fire.
Hezbollah, which boasts tens of thousands of battle-hardened fighters and long-range missiles capable of hitting anywhere inside Israel, has long been seen as the most powerful militant group in the region and a key partner to Iran in both threatening and deterring Israel.
But Hezbollah has never faced an onslaught quite like this one, which began with a sophisticated attack on its pagers and walkie-talkies in mid-September that killed dozens of people and wounded around 3,000 — including many fighters but also many civilians.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Israel's airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure but warned that the group will work quickly to rebuild it.
“We’re watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership vacuum. It’s going to be tough,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
This story has been updated to correct that Monday’s strike in central Beirut hit an apartment building, but it did not level it.
Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed reporting.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Damaged cars are parked in front of a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Lebanese policeman looks at damaged apartments that were hit by Israeli strike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Damaged apartments, right, are seen in a building that was hit by Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Two women take a selfie next to a newly painted graffiti of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a day after Hezbollah confirms its leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows the site of an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
A fire engine ladder extends up a building that was hit in an apparent Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A fire engine ladder extends up a building that was hit in an apparent Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People inspect a damaged car near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A fire engine ladder extends up a building that was hit in an apparent Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A photographer documents damage in a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Policemen and civil defense workers stand next to damaged cars near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Policemen and civil defense workers inspect a damaged car near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A fire engine ladder extends up a building that was hit in an apparent Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A firefighter inspects a damaged car near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
