Seventeen policemen have been booked on charges of beating a junior colleague who later died of leukemia and keeping mum about the violence, police said Monday.
The 21-year-old victim, identified only by his surname, Park, died last June while fulfilling his mandatory military service as a conscripted policeman in South Chungcheong Province. Police launched an investigation into the case after the victim's family wrote in an Internet posting last month that Park had suffered from habitual beatings by his seniors and become terminally ill due to the resulting stress.
An ensuing probe indicated that Park was beaten at least 10 times in a bus for not being able to memorize the names of his seniors, and again in a boiler room for misplacing the company commander's underwear, police said.
He was also verbally and physically abused on five or six separate occasions by officers, including one on kitchen duty after asking for porridge to soothe his upset stomach upon returning from a hospital.
Police booked 13 conscripted policemen on charges of physical violence against Park and four other senior officers on charges of dereliction of duty for allowing such incidents to take place. Police also plan to request arrest warrants for two of them for habitual beating.
"We suspect there are at least 30 more victims aside from Park," said a police official. "The defendants have said that such beating is customary in the process of suppressing demonstrations and within the organization."
The official also vowed to prevent similar incidents from happening again by subjecting the suspects to strict investigations and harsh punishments, while drawing up measures to improve conditions for conscripted policemen.
But he did not draw a direct link between the beatings and the cause of Park's death.
"Although medical opinions suggest that stress from violence can lead to leukemia, it is difficult to confirm such a causal relationship," he said.