By Lee Kyung-min
The government has reshuffled prosecutors who were criticized for selectively exercising investigative discretion due to their close relationship with scandal-ridden former presidential secretary Woo Byung-woo.
The Ministry of Justice, in a rare reshuffle Thursday, demoted six prosecutors and moved one, holding them responsible for “inept” handling of important cases.
“The Ministry of Justice carried out a reshuffle in an effort to restore public faith in the prosecution. Those who had been in charge of overseeing tthe investigation were demoted to either a scholarly position or one unrelated to investigation,” the ministry said in a statement.
Of the seven, four were posted at the Institute of Justice including Yoon Kab-keun, Daegu High Prosecutors’ Office head; Jeong Jum-shik, Supreme Prosecutors’ Office public security unit head; Kim Jin-mo, Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office head; and Jeon Hyun-jun, Daegu District Prosecutors Office head.
The four offered to resign immediately.
Yoo Sang-bum, Changwon District Prosecutors’ Office head, and Jeong Soo-bong, Supreme Prosecutors’ Office criminal intelligence unit head, were demoted to Gwangju High Prosecutors’ Office and Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office, respectively.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office senior-level Prosecutor Noh Seung-kwon was posted at the Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office.
Yoon is Woo’s closest friends. Yoon led the investigation into Woo for four months over alleged embezzlement involving his family-owned company Jeonggang.
At the beginning of the investigation, Yoon vowed that he would investigate fairly regardless of any outside pressure, but he failed to indict Woo. The four month investigation ended with a photo in which Woo was smirking with his arms crossed with two prosecutors bowing in a polite posture in a room at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Yoo led the 2014 investigation into an influence-peddling scandal involving Chung Yoon-hoe, the former husband of Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the corruption scandal that removed former President Park Geun-hye from office.
The scandal was about the so-called “Chung Yoon-hoe documents,” which described how Chung was deeply involved in wide-ranging state affairs despite not holding any official government post, an allegation uncannily all too similar to that of Choi’s.
In the document written by the presidential civil affairs office, Chung frequently met with three key aides to former President Park and was briefed on important issues and Cheong Wa Dae’s countermeasures.
At the time, it was revealed that former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon ordered a Cheong Wa Dae official, Cho Eung-chun, to confirm whether Chung was really pulling strings behind the curtain. After Cho wrote and delivered the report to Kim, Kim gave it to Park Ji-man, the younger brother of the former President.
Yoo, instead of investigating Chung, only indicted Cho and his subordinate Park Gwan-cheon, a police officer.
Jeong Jum-shik was the task force head leading the prosecutorial panel at the Constitutional Court seeking to disband the then far-left United Progressive Party. Its members included Lee Jeong-mi, a former lawyer who humiliated former President Park on a nationally televised presidential debate by pointing out her ignorance on multiple social issues and alleged tax evasion.
Jeon Hyun-jun indicted four journalists at broadcaster MBC for airing a documentary that criticized the former President Lee Myung-bak for not fully disclosing the bilateral deal on importing U.S. beef which was widely believed to possibly cause mad cow disease.
The rest of the prosecutors were involved in impeding investigation into the Sewol sinking, going easy on loyalists to former President Park for election law violations.
Meanwhile, the seven were among ten prosecutors cited by Rep. Park Young-sun of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea as “Woo Byung-woo’s men.”
She disclosed the list during a National Assembly interpellation session last November on the Choi scandal, telling then Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn and Justice Minister Kim Hyun-woong thorough investigation would be impossible unless the people she called Woo loyalists were removed from their posts.
The other three are former Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam, former Deputy Prosecutor General Kim Joo-hyun and former Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office head Lee Young-ryeol.