Court rejects request for arrest of prosecutor in sex scandal
A Seoul district court has dismissed the prosecution's request to arrest one of their own in a sex scandal, a court official said Tuesday.
"There is little possibility of evidence being destroyed and the suspect (prosecutor) is unlikely to flee, considering the attitude he has shown during his interrogation," Wie Hyun-seok, a judge from the Seoul Central District Court, said of reasons for the court's decision.
The court's decision was made late Monday.
The suspect in the case, a 30-year-old junior prosecutor, allegedly had sexual exchanges with a 42-year-old female suspect while questioning her in a theft case. He, identified only by his surname Jeon, is also suspected of having a sexual intercourse with the suspect two days after their first exchange.
The prosecution labeled the sexual exchanges were "a kind of bribery," placing Jeon under an emergency arrest on Saturday. With the court's rejection of the prosecution's request for a formal arrest warrant, the junior prosecutor will likely face his trial without detention.
"Despite possible criticism over the suspect's ethics, bribery charges applied in this case are quite questionable and thus a need to place the suspect under arrest is also questionable," the district court judge said.
Still, the case is already adding to public criticism against the prosecution as it came on the heels of a massive bribery scandal centering on allegations that a senior prosecutor took massive bribes.
Kim Kwang-joon was arrested for receiving a total of nearly 900 million won (US$826,000) from Cho Hee-pal, the mastermind of South Korea's biggest-ever pyramid scheme, and the Eugene Group, a mid-sized conglomerate, in exchange for influence peddling.
Under mounting criticism over a series of scandals, the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office (SPO) held a meeting Monday to discuss various reform measures, such abolishing the powerful central investigation unit of the SPO, which handles high-profile corruption cases, and reducing the prosecution's investigative powers.
Also, Seok Dong-hyeon, chief of the Seoul Dongbu District Prosecutor's Office where the junior prosecutor was working, resigned from his post earlier in the day to take responsibility as head of the office.
After being assigned as a prosecutor at the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office in March, Jeon participated in a three-month training program in Seoul. He is a first-generation graduate of the country's law school, which was first implemented in 2009.