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A website dedicated to the murder of Cho Jung-pil at an Itaewon Burger King in April 1997. Although prosecutors have yet to close the case, some progressive groups count the murder among crimes related to the U.S. Forces Korea.
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the father of a murder victim who is suing the state for W100 million (about US$100,000) in damages for bungling the prosecution of his son¡¯s killer. After Cho Jung-pil was murdered at an Itaewon Burger King in 1997, investigators fingered Arthur J. Patterson, the then 17-year-old son of a U.S. Forces Korea civilian employee and Edward K. Lee (18 at the time) as prime suspects.
¡°One of the two men is the real murderer, but neither the prosecutor nor the judge could determine who it was,¡± Cho¡¯s father said. ¡°The prosecutor allowed them to go free and then said it was just ¡®a mistake.¡¯ This case will never be over until the person who murdered my son is brought to justice.¡±
Throughout the investigation, Patterson and Lee each blamed the other for the killing. The prosecution decided to charge Lee with the murder, but the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where he was acquitted in 1998.
Cho's father believes it was Patterson who murdered his son. He says it was clear that either of the two men was the killer, but a Seoul district public prosecutor identified as Kim, who was in charge of the case, forgot to renew a travel ban for Patterson, who promptly fled to the U.S. Kim says he was preoccupied because a member of his staff had just been arrested on corruption charges, so he made a mistake. When two days later he applied to renew the travel ban, Patterson was gone.
Cho's family searched for Patterson in the U.S. "We hired private detectives in the United States to track down Patterson,¡± says Cho's brother-in-law, who gave his name as Seo. ¡°We were going to stand him before a U.S. court, but we gave up because the lawyers¡¯ fees were too much."
But Cho's death was too unjust for his father to let things stop there. He brought a suit against the state, claiming pain and suffering due to Patterson¡¯s release because of the prosecutor¡¯s negligence.
He lost in the first and second instance on the grounds that while the failure of the prosecutor to extend the travel ban was negligent, the case had yet to be completed and there was direct no causal link between Kim's action and the emotional pain suffered by Cho's family.
But the Supreme Court on Wednesday took the side of the victim's family. With Park Jae-yoon presiding, it ruled there was a direct causal relationship between the mistakes made by the prosecutor and the suffering of the victim's family and returned the case to Seoul High Court.
"The prosecutor carried out his duties in a thoroughly illogical manner, and because of this, the suspect fled overseas, which made it impossible to conduct an investigation and trial,¡± the court said. ¡°The state must compensate the bereaved, who have lost their chance to get to the bottom¡± of their son's murder.
On hearing the verdict, Cho's family said, ¡°We cannot rest until Jung-pil's killer is revealed."
The Patterson case is officially still under investigation at the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office. Kim was never punished and now works for the Supreme Prosecutor's Office.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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