South Korea's law enforcement agencies plan to send a team of investigators to France to observe that country's investigation into infanticide involving a French couple who lived in South Korea, a prosecution official said Monday.
"The Justice Ministry and the prosecution are considering the dispatch," the official at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said, requesting anonymity. "We will send our investigators as soon as the French law authorities accommodate it."
A decision by the French side will likely be made around this weekend, he added.
South Korean police say the French couple are highly likely the parents of two infants found dead in a freezer in their home in southern Seoul on July 23, citing DNA test results. The couple, Jean-Louis Courjault, 40, and his wife Veronique Courjault, 39, have denied they are the parents and refused to come back to South Korea to face an inquiry.
"The South Korean investigators, if dispatched, will have no right to directly question the couple because the extradition treaty between the two countries has yet to take effect," the official said.
The treaty was signed by the two governments in June and now awaits approval from their respective parliaments.
South Korea sent materials secured in investigations by its police and prosecution, including the DNA test results, to France last week.
Seoul, Sept. 18 (Yonhap New)
S. Korea weighing dispatch of investigators to France for infanticide inquiry |
