Jang Yoon-gi, suspect in the 'high school girl stabbing murder', standing at the photo line [Yonhap News file photo]

On the 21st, both the prosecution and the police simultaneously conducted search and seizure operations at the National Office of Investigation (NOI) headquarters to uncover allegations of botched investigations and destruction of evidence in the Jang Yoon-gi case.

The Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office announced that it began the search and seizure of the NOI headquarters at 6:15 a.m. that day to investigate charges including the disclosure of official secrets and destruction of evidence by police in connection with the Jang Yoon-gi case.

The scope of the search and seizure includes the NOI's Violent Crimes Investigation Division, the Women and Juvenile Crimes Investigation Division, their respective division offices, and subordinate units and organizations.

The special investigation team formed by the National Police Agency to uncover the truth behind the Jang Yoon-gi case also began its own search and seizure operations at offices, including the NOI Violent Crimes Investigation Division, starting at 7:30 a.m.

It is understood that because the prosecution arrived on the scene first to initiate the search, the police observed the prosecution’s execution of the warrant before proceeding with their own procedures.

Both agencies carried out their operations under separate search warrants.

The police explained that since most of the objects to be seized are digital files, they are duplicated, allowing both the prosecution and police to secure identical data even if the prosecution executed its warrant first.

National Office of Investigation [Yonhap News file photo]

As of now, officials from the National Office of Investigation are reportedly considered witnesses rather than suspects.

Both inside and outside investigative circles, it is considered highly unusual for a search and seizure warrant to be issued when no incumbent NOI officials have been booked as suspects.

This search and seizure took place following testimonies from police officers who were involved in the original investigation, claiming that the National Office of Investigation had ordered the murder case and a past sex crime case to be investigated separately.

While the option of consolidating the case with a sexual assault report filed with police in another region was reviewed at the time, the officers stated that the case was ultimately assigned to the Women and Juvenile Division per instructions from the NOI.

The prosecution and police suspect that there was an intentional failure in the investigation, such as the omission of key evidence and the disregard of major circumstantial facts in the Jang Yoon-gi case, and are each investigating whether the investigative chain of command at the time intervened.

Jang Yoon-gi was indicted and detained last May on charges of murdering Lee Chae-won, a high school sophomore in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province (including charges of murder involving rape under the Act on the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes).