South Korea officer accused of closing missing cases

A South Korean police officer was accused of lying to close more than two dozen missing-person cases, including two involving people later found dead on Jeju, authorities said Tuesday.

Two of the missing people were among four bodies found over several days in August on the resort island. One case involved 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran, whose body was discovered on August 24, months after her boyfriend reported her missing. Another involved a man in his 60s who had also been reported missing.

The scandal led President Lee Jae Myung to order an investigation into the handling of Jang's case and call for police reforms.

The officer, surnamed Bu, was arrested last week. Authorities said he was accused of recording Jang's death as a traffic accident while telling her family he had contacted her and that she did not want to be found.

Jeju Police Agency detective Jung Tae-woon said Bu falsely closed cases mainly because of work-related negligence linked to accumulated workload pressure, fatigue and increased responsibilities. Jung said the officer's evasive and irresponsible attitude was believed to have contributed to the offence.

Police said they could not determine the cause of Jang's death because her body was in an advanced state of decomposition. That was a change from an earlier assessment that there were no signs of foul play.

Police reviewed about 300 missing-person cases handled by Bu over about 16 months. They said they found 25 further cases that had been falsely closed without verifying the missing person's whereabouts, or by deleting records after reporting the person dead. Authorities said all 25 people in those further cases were eventually found safe.