[단독]100-page report of “Han Dong-hoon not accused”, Lee Sung-yoon dismissed for a month

Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office Lee Seong-yoon eventually passed the year without making any conclusions on the’Channel A Probation Convergence Case’. In particular, it is reported that the investigative team posted a report on the reasons for innocence of 100 pages against Prosecutor Han Dong-hoon (a research fellow at the Legal Affairs and Training Institute) earlier last month. It is analyzed that the delay of time for more than nine months is due to concern that the frame of “prosecution convergence”, which Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae put up as the cause of the prosecution reform, will be broken if a prosecutor is indicted.

According to the JoongAng Ilbo coverage on the 1st, the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecutor Byun Pil-gun), who is investigating the Channel A case, concluded a non-prosecution against a prosecutor in early December last year and published a report on the reasons for innocence from over 100 pages. It was uploaded to the second deputy prosecutor at the district prosecutor’s office. This is because District Attorney General Lee Seong-yoon entrusted the approval to Deputy General Manager Choi on behalf of First Deputy Prosecutor Kim Wook-jun, who expressed his appreciation earlier last month. Since then, Deputy General Choi has not made a decision by taking the entire investigation record to review the record.

In the report, former Channel A reporter Lee Dong-jae (35, arrested indictment) threatened with a letter to former Value Invest Korea (VIK) CEO Lee Chul (55, incarcerated) in order to investigate the corruption suspicion of Roh Si-min, Chairman of the Roh Moo Hyun Group. It was judged that there was no content to prove this in the transcript of Channel A, which is the core evidence of the alleged conspiracy.

In the transcript, prosecutor Han said that when Channel A reporters brought up the suspicion of Chairman Yoo Si-min, he said, “I’m not interested, he’s not a politician.” This transcript is a recording of a conversation between former reporter Lee and reporter Baekmo Channel A with a prosecutor at the Deputy Prosecutor’s Office in Busan in February last year. The report also said that reporters Lee and reporters Paik denied a conspiracy relationship with a prosecutor in the prosecution investigation.

In response, the central district prosecutor said, “It is true that the second deputy leader is in confrontation (substitute approval), but investigation and review are in progress according to the procedure.”

It is said that there is no disagreement within the investigation team, even though one prosecutor is unprosecuting. In August of last year, the investigation team under the former Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office (Currently Deputy Prosecutor of Gwangju District Prosecutor) Jeong Jin-woong, former Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, could not disclose the collusion relationship between Prosecutor Han and former Channel A reporter Lee Dong-jae. At the time, the investigation team detained the former reporter on August 5 of last year for attempted coercion under the Criminal Law, and rejected the conspiracy with a prosecutor.

In order to find out whether a prosecutor’s office was conspiring, Deputy Prosecutor Chung issued a seizure and search warrant for a mobile phone SIM card of a prosecutor at the Yongin branch office of the Legal Affairs Training Institute on the morning of July 29 last year. In the process, a struggle arose, and this resulted in only an unfortunate victim who was indicted for self-assault last year and was tried. Earlier in July of last year, the Prosecutors’ Investigation Deliberation Committee also recommended that a prosecutor be suspended and not prosecuted.

The legal community believes that the decision to be free of charges against a prosecutor is actually a self-denial of the frame of “conflict of prosecutors”, so the prosecutor of the prosecutor is postponing the approval. Some analysts say that they are concerned that if a prosecutor is not prosecuted, it will undermine the legitimacy of the Justice Department’s disciplinary action against Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol. On the 16th of last month, the Prosecutors’ Disciplinary Committee of the Ministry of Justice voted for two months of suspension against President Yoon, and included two of the four reasons for disciplinary action (interference in the investigation of the Channel A case and interfering with the investigation).

There are also criticisms comparing the sexual harassment case of the late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon with no charge after five months for not making a conclusion for the 9th month since the investigation began.

This incident was brought to light in the end of March last year by MBC’s report on ‘verbion collusion.’ Subsequently, in April of the same year, the Citizens’ Association of Democratic Press (Min Eon-ryeon) accused the former reporter and the’prosecutor of the Buddha’s statement’ to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on blackmail. At the time, Min Eon-ryeon filed an accusation, saying, “The former reporter threatened the reporter by making an acquaintance with the prosecutor, who is believed to be close to President Yoon.”

Reporters Jung Yoojin and Kim Soomin [email protected]