South Korean court acquits former police chief over deadly 2022 Halloween crush

Kim Kwang-ho, centre, was appearing at Seoul Western District Court (Lim Hwa-young/Yonhap via AP)

A South Korean court has found the former police chief of the country’s capital and two other officers not guilty over a botched response to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in 2022.

The verdict by the Seoul Western District Court drew angry responses from grieving relatives and their advocates, who accused the court of refusing to hold high-level officials accountable for an incident that was largely blamed on a lack of disaster planning and an inadequate emergency response.