The Seoul city government plans to file a damages claim for more than four billion won against Sarang Jeil Church and its pastor Jun Kwang-hoon for causing a new wave of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Friday that it will submit a petition to the Seoul Central District Court later in the day seeking four-point-62 billion won in compensation.

Seoul City accused the church and its pastor of refusing to cooperate with and even hampering authorities' epidemiological studies, as well as submitting false documents, in violation of infectious disease prevention laws.

The city government claimed that it suffered damages totaling some 13-point-one billion won due to the infection cluster from the church that led to 641 people in Seoul testing positive as of Thursday.

The city earlier filed a criminal complaint with the police against Jun, on charges of violating the infectious disease prevention law.