South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol blocked on Tuesday (Jan 30) a Bill to launch a new probe into a Halloween crowd crush that killed 159 people in Seoul’s Itaewon district in 2022, in a move slammed by the opposition and relatives of the victims.
Yoon’s veto of a probe with an independent panel came after the prime minister described the opposition-backed Bill as politicised and potentially in breach of the constitution.
“The pain from the disaster cannot be used as a tool to justify political strife and a possibility of unconstitutionality,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told a cabinet meeting, denying an earlier investigation by police and prosecutors was flawed.