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The Supreme Prosecutors' Office flag. / Photo by Reporter Song Ui-ju

A juvenile sexual assault case that police had initially sought to close due to doubts over the victim's credibility has been resolved following a formal reinvestigation demand by the prosecution.

On May 22, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office highlighted key cases where it triggered judicial oversight mechanisms through "reinvestigation demands" against police decisions to drop cases, subsequently uncovering hidden criminal offenses.

The representative case involved a 16-year-old male accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female student. The police had previously issued a decision not to forward the case to prosecutors, citing a lack of consistency in the victim's statements and accepting the suspect's defense that they were "merely slapping each other's buttocks in a playful manner."

The prosecution, however, determined that the victim had no plausible motive to file a false report. Prosecutors ordered a reinvestigation targeting the victim's homeroom teacher, academy staff, and peers. This secondary probe uncovered contemporary accounts the victim had shared with acquaintances immediately following the incident, alongside an audio recording that partially captured the circumstances of the crime. Consequently, the suspect was forwarded to the juvenile protection court this past February.

The prosecution also highlighted other interventions. In a traffic accident case dropped by police on the grounds that the suspect held comprehensive auto insurance, prosecutors detected indicators of a driver swap within the victim's testimony and demanded a reinvestigation, eventually exposing the actual driver.

In a fraud case that police had declined to forward, the prosecution instructed investigators to conduct a thorough bank account trace, which brought to light a multi-layered Robin-Hood-style Ponzi scheme.

Additionally, in an incident involving a suspect who provided a bank account to a voice-phishing syndicate, prosecutors flagged the individual's prior criminal record in burner-phone distribution and ordered a reinvestigation.

"We will continue to actively exercise judicial oversight through reinvestigation demands to eliminate blind spots in initial police investigations," a prosecution official stated. "We remain fully committed to ensuring that crime victims receive robust protection under the criminal justice system."

                                                                                                            Park Se-young