Bodies found on S. Korean holiday island as missing persons scandal deepens

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - SEOUL — Four missing people have been found dead on South Korean holiday island Jeju, as local police face mounting public criticism for allegedly mishandling missing persons cases.

Reports emerged last week that authorities were launching a belated search for a woman reported missing months ago. This sparked criticism of the police for failing to search for her earlier.

The scandal has since deepened with the arrest of a police sergeant, surnamed Bu, who is accused of lying to victims' families and prematurely closing missing persons cases.

President Lee Jae Myung called for greater police accountability ‌after public outrage over the handling of a series of missing-person cases on Jeju island, as reforms are set to give the force a bigger role in criminal investigations.

"Police are likely to wield the greatest power among state institutions," Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, adding that the public questioned whether ​the force could bear the responsibility.

Four officers in the sergeant's chain of command have been put on administrative leave.

Since Saturday, police have found four bodies on the island, including that of 37-year-old Jang Mi-ran who had gone missing in May.

On Monday, her body was located at a palm tree farm about 500 metres (547 yards) from where she was staying. She was believed to have killed herself.

Bu is suspected to have closed Jang's case prematurely without confirming her whereabouts.

According to local reports, Bu had allegedly told Jang's boyfriend that he had spoken to Jang over the phone and she had told Bu she did not wish to speak to her boyfriend.

Police also found the body of a man in his 60s from Jeju City on Saturday.

The man had gone missing on 28 June. Bu had closed his case and reportedly told the family that the man was found "safe" but "does not wish to disclose his location to the family".

"We believed the police when they said my father was safe and waited, but after 51 days, what returned was his body," the man's son told reporters.

It is not yet clear whether Bu was involved in the missing persons cases for two other bodies that were found in coastal villages in recent days.

Police are now examining all the missing persons reports that Bu had handled, which number nearly 300.

Jeju is one of South Korea's most popular tourist destinations.

The island, known for its rows of palm trees and sparkling waters, received more than 13 million foreign and domestic visitors last year.

While violent crime is rare in South Korea, suicide rates are among the highest in the world.

Some experts have said the low crime rate is part of the reason why missing persons cases are not taken seriously.

"After experiencing on the field that the absolute majority of missing adults are found quickly, [the officers] tend to assume all cases are like that," Lee Yung-hyeock, a professor specialising in police science at Konkuk University, told Yonhap news agency.

While more than 70,000 adults are reported missing in South Korea each year, 99% of them are marked as resolved within a month.

On Tuesday, President Lee said during a Cabinet meeting that "the recent breakdown in police discipline and irresponsibility in public safety matters have become serious problems".

Pointing out that the police are likely to wield the most power out of all the state's institutions, he said "the Korean people are questioning whether [the police] deserve this large power".

South Korea's national police chief was grilled by lawmakers at an emergency National Assembly hearing on Monday, during which he admitted that "there is a fault in the system".

This scandal comes at a politically sensitive time for South Korea's police.

The government recently passed reforms to transfer full investigative power from the prosecutors to the police, a move they said was intended to curtail the prosecutors' influence in politics.

However, the reform has been unpopular among the public, who have for many years accused the police of corruption and incompetence.