IT venture firm head arrested on assault charges

SUWON, South Korea, Nov. 9 (Yonhap) — A court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for the head of a local online storage service company on charges that he assaulted and abused his company employees.

The suspect, Yang Jin-ho, chief of WeDisk and robot developer K-Technology, had already been in police detention, and Suwon district court said he presents the risk of fleeing and destroying evidence. Prosecutors filed for the writ on Thursday on multiple charges of assaults, violence and coercion.

They also put drugs charges against Yang for smoking marijuana and for violating a legal ban on online distribution of obscene materials.

Video footage of Yang abusing and insulting employees recently went viral. In the footage, he was seen killing chickens with a crossbow and forcing an employee to do the same on a company retreat in 2016.

Other footage showed Yang insulting and slapping a different employee in an office and telling him to kneel down and apologize.

Yang had been in police custody since Wednesday.

Yang has already been investigated by police over suspicion that his company overlooked the circulation of obscene materials on the file storage and sharing site.

He has admitted to most of the charges, except for some of the drug charges.

An image of WeDisk chief Yang Jin-ho on Nov. 8, 2018. (Yonhap)