The National Archives of Korea of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 13th that it decided to prohibit the disposal of records related to the investigation of the late Private Chae Soo-geun at the request of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials. Additionally, the records related to the Itaewon disaster requested by the Special Investigation Committee for Truth and Measures on the Itaewon Disaster of Oct. 29 were also decided to be prohibited from disposal.
Accordingly, the records related to the investigation of Private Chae will be preserved for five years starting today. The records include those related to the death case of Private Chae, the investigation, instructions related to the incident, and non-compliance with those instructions. The concerned institutions include the Presidential Secretariat, the National Security Office, the Ministry of National Defense, the Defense Security Command, the Navy-Marine Corps Headquarters, the Korean National Police Agency, the Gyeongsangbuk-do Police Agency, among others.
In the case of records related to the Itaewon disaster, disposal is prohibited until the Itaewon Special Investigation Committee's activities conclude. Records related to the disaster from five years prior to the incident on Oct. 29, 2022, until the end of the committee's activities, are subject to this prohibition. The concerned institutions include the Presidential Secretariat, the National Security Office, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office, the Korean National Police Agency, the Fire Service, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Yongsan-gu of Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, and the Seoul Transportation Corporation.
Earlier, the Corruption Investigation Office requested in July 2023, and the Itaewon Special Investigation Committee requested in October 2022 that the National Archives prohibit the disposal of related records. The disposal prohibition measures under Article 27-3 of the Public Records Management Act are applied to records whose retention period is about to expire or has already expired. Such actions are taken for records related to incidents like the Private Chae case and the Itaewon disaster, where the retention period is imminent or has passed.
The National Archives determined that these disposal prohibition requests conform to the conditions required for prohibition, and thus decided and announced the prohibition of disposal of the related records. After the announcement, during the record evaluation, the list will be pre-submitted to the concerned institutions to verify whether the records in question are included, and on-site inspections will be conducted to ensure the records are not disposed of.