Forensic report falsified in Hwasong murder case: prosecution

The prosecution on Monday demanded a retrial for a man who may have been wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in 1988, in light of new evidence and a series of flaws in the original investigation.

The Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office has reopened the decades-old case after Lee Chun-jae, who is already serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law in 1994, confessed to the crime in October.

A recent DNA breakthrough has pinpointed Lee as the actual culprit behind the Hwaseong serial murders -- that is, the murders of 10 women in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, from 1986 to 1991.

A 52-year-old man, surnamed Yun, was charged and later convicted of killing the 13-year-old victim in Hwaseong, whose death marked the eighth of the serial murders that took place in the city.

“We confirmed that there had been cruel treatment by investigators at the time and a forensic report by the National Forensic Service had been fraudulently written,” an official at the district prosecutors’ office, Hwang Sung-yun, wrote in a briefing when submitting a document to request a retrial for Yun.

Prosecutors requested the submission of two samples of human hair collected from the crime scene -- key evidence now being kept at the National Archives of Korea -- to the court and an analysis of the evidence.

The prosecution contends that the forensic report, a major piece of evidence that led to the conviction of Yun, was made up and was not based on the hair samples.

The police have denied falsifying the report.

Yun was sentenced to life imprisonment and was released from jail on parole in 2009 after serving 20 years for the crime he may not have committed.

In September, Lee was officially identified as the prime suspect in the case through DNA testing.

After Lee’s confession, Yun said he had been tortured and coerced into making a false confession. He filed for a new trial at the Suwon District Court last month, hoping for the court to overturn his conviction.

In a separate move earlier this month, police at the Gyeonggi South Provincial Police Agency, who are also reexamining the case, said they had booked eight of the original investigators for allegedly abusing Yun when he was a suspect and falsifying investigative documents.

(laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)