SEOUL– Police arrested two senior officers Monday for their alleged bungled response to the deadly crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood.

The Seoul Western District Court issued arrest warrants for Park Sung-min, former high-ranking intelligence officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, and Kim Jin-ho, former intelligence officer at the Yongsan Police Station, covering the Itaewon district.

They were the first to be detained in connection with the fatal crowd collapse on Oct. 29 that killed at least 158 people.

Park is under suspicion of ordering the deletion of an internal intelligence report giving prior warnings of a possible safety accident during the Halloween period in a suspected attempt to cover up inaction.

Kim is accused of making his subordinates delete the report under the direction of Park, according to the police.

The court accepted the special investigation team’s request for their arrests, citing the possibility of them destroying evidence.

But the court denied arrest warrants for Lee Im-jae, former Yongsan police chief, and Song Byung-joo, former emergency monitoring officer.

Lee is under suspicion of arriving at the site late, some 50 minutes after the tragedy happened, police said. He is also accused of not implementing enough crowd control measures after prior warnings of overcrowding during the Halloween celebrations, police said.

Song is accused of failing to promptly report the situation to Lee.

The court turned down the warrants, citing the low chance of officers’ attempts to destroy evidence.

Source: Yonhap News Agency