[Exclusive] Prosecutors, ‘Yongin Apartment Flyer Incident’ dismissed with no charges… “Insufficient evidence”

A middle school student who was handed over to the prosecution on charges of damaging property by removing a post from an apartment elevator was cleared of charges.

On the 5th, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office notified Ahn, who was transferred on charges of property damage, not to be charged due to 'insufficient evidence'.

Previously, on August 8, the Yongin Eastern Police Station in Gyeonggi Province sent Ahn, a middle school student living in an apartment in Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, to the prosecution on charges of property damage.

At the time, the police determined that Ms. Ahn's act of tearing down an unauthorized post on a mirror while returning home in the elevator of her apartment on May 11 constituted damage to property.

However, Ahn's father later complained of injustice through Kookmin Shinmungo, saying, "It is unfair to apply the crime of property damage to the act of removing a post attached to a mirror that blocks the view without any other intention."

When this fact became known, the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, a superior agency, believed that there were additional matters to consider in the judgment of the Yongin East Department, and the police directly requested a supplementary investigation from the prosecution last September, received the case back, and continued the investigation.

The head of the criminal division at Yongin Eastern Police Station, who was in charge of the case, said, “As a result of the supplementary investigation, we determined that there was no intention in removing the post,” and added, “We notified the prosecution of our opinion not to forward it on the 29th of last month.”

In response to this, both sides expressed their position, saying, "If you were the subject of a report, you could have been punished without legal assistance," and "I think the mechanical application of the law that causes inconvenience is unfair."

Kim Dae-eun, a lawyer at Daeryun Law Firm who represented the middle school student, told MBC, "When I heard that he was in a situation where he would become an ex-convict just for removing an illegal post in an elevator, I thought that the state's exercise of judicial power worked mechanically," and added, "I am glad that I was able to relieve the young student of his injustice."

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