Female sergeant found dead at Air Force's 20th Fighter Wing

The main gates of the AIr Force Headquarters in Gyeryong, South Chungcheong on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

A female sergeant was found dead Tuesday morning in a dormitory of the 20th Fighter Wing of the Air Force, the same unit that lost Sergeant Lee Ye-ram, who committed suicide after claiming she was sexually assaulted.

Military authorities have launched an investigation to determine the exact cause of the sergeant's death.

The sergeant found dead Tuesday morning was a member of the Air Maintenance Squadron’s Parts Maintenance Battalion.

The military has faced increased scrutiny into its handling of sexual harassment cases after Lee, an Air Force sergeant stationed at the 20th Fighter Wing base in Seosan, South Chungcheong, took her own life in May 2021.

Lee blamed the Air Force for ignoring her complaint of sexual assault by a male master sergeant after a work dinner in March 2021, which he pressured her into attending despite Covid-19 restrictions on such gatherings. Lee accused the male colleague of groping her in a vehicle when the pair were on their way home from the dinner.

Although Lee filed a complaint three days after the incident, the Air Force’s gender equality center did not immediately send a report to the Defense Ministry’s office of gender equality, reporting the incident only as part of a regular update a month later in April.

Her suicide, which took place shortly after she was reassigned to a new unit, prompted her family to demand justice in a petition they uploaded to the Blue House website, which garnered over 217,000 signatures.

The military's probe into her suicide closed with 15 personnel being indicted in October.

While the ministry handed down disciplinary measures to a total of 38 people in the case, sparking public outcry over the military’s attitude towards sexual crime in the armed forces, it only indicted 15 people out of 25 individuals.

Criminal charges against the other 10 were dropped for lack of evidence.

The Defense Ministry faced particular criticism for not bring indictments against military police or prosecutors working for the 20th Fighter Wing, who initially handled the sexual harassment report brought forward by the victim.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]