Prosecution Reform Committee's Fact-Finding Team Reports First Results on 3 Cases, Including Wirye Case Involving President Lee

The fact-finding team of the Ministry of Justice's Committee for Respecting Human Rights in Prosecution, which is looking into allegations of abuse of prosecutorial power, has submitted its investigation results on the Wirye New Town development corruption case and other matters involving President Lee Jae-myung to the committee.

The fact-finding team attended a closed-door meeting of the prosecution's future committee on the afternoon of the 15th and reported its investigation results on the three cases placed on the first-round target list: the Wirye case, the suspicion of statistical manipulation under the Moon Jae-in administration, and the West Sea official shooting incident.

The fact-finding team's findings were produced for the first time in four months since the launch of the future committee.

The fact-finding team reviewed the overall investigation and indictment processes, including analyzing case records of the three cases and conducting written surveys of the prosecutors in charge, and it was understood that they reached conclusions to the effect that it is "difficult to conclude they were illegal" or that "there are no problems."

Based on the reported fact-finding results and following deliberations, the future committee can recommend separate measures to the Minister of Justice if it determines that there were human rights violations or abuses of authority in the process of exercising prosecutorial power, or it can order supplementary investigations depending on the contents of the investigation.

However, expectations are raised that it will be difficult for the future committee to immediately reach a conclusion at today's meeting.

The Wirye New Town case involves suspicions that President Lee Jae-myung, who was the mayor of Seongnam in 2013, provided various favors and internal information to developers during the Wirye New Town development project.

The prosecution indicted President Lee without detention in March 2023 under the Anti-Corruption Act after the launch of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, and the subsequent first-instance trial has been suspended since the president's inauguration last year.

Jeong Jin-sang, former chief of political coordination for the Democratic Party's representative office and considered a close confidant of President Lee, was also sent to trial on the same charges and is undergoing a first-instance trial.

Five private developers, including Yoo Dong-gyu, former head of planning at Seongnam Urban Development Corp., lawyer Nam Wook, and accountant Jeong Young-hak, were acquitted in the first instance last February, and the ruling was finalized after the prosecution gave up its appeal.

The statistical manipulation case involves suspicions that figures of the Moon Jae-in administration manipulated major national statistics, including real estate, income, and employment, to conceal rising housing prices.

In March 2024, 11 individuals, including former presidential policy chiefs Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Sang-jo and former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mi, were indicted on charges of violating the Statistics Act and abuse of authority, and their first-instance trial is underway.

The West Sea official shooting incident involves suspicions that the Moon Jae-in administration covered up and downplayed the 2020 killing of Lee Dae-jun, an official at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, by North Korean military forces in the West Sea as an incident that occurred during a voluntary defection to the North.

In December 2022, the prosecution referred five figures from the Moon Jae-in administration's security line to trial on charges including the creation and uttering of false official documents, including former Minister of National Defense Suh Wook, former National Intelligence Service Director Park Ji-won (currently a Democratic Party lawmaker), and former Cheong Wa Dae National Security Office Director Seo Hoon, but they were later acquitted after the prosecution dropped its appeal.

Launched last June to investigate suspicions of abuse of authority during the prosecution's investigation process, the future committee designated seven cases as primary targets for investigation, including the Wirye, statistical manipulation, and West Sea cases.

The fact-finding team plans to report the remaining first-round cases, such as the Ssangbangwool illegal remittance to North Korea, Daejang-dong development corruption, the case involving former Democratic Research Institute Vice President Kim Yong, and allegations of false reporting regarding the defamation of Yoon Suk Yeol, to the future committee as soon as their investigations are completed.

The 12 second-round investigation target cases added last August are: the Seongnam FC case, the Baekhyeon-dong case, the Gyeonggi Provincial corporate card misuse suspicion, the Kim Yong perjury instigation case, the unlawful seizure and search of former High Prosecutors' Office head Lim Jung-hyuk's law office, the Moon Jae-in administration's ordered investigation into Ulsan mayoral election interference, the former President Moon Jae-in's son-in-law case, the Cheong Wa Dae planned inspection suspicion, the travel ban on Kim Hak-oal, former Daegu Economic Vice Mayor Kim Yeon-chang's case, Coupang's unpaid severance pay, and wage arrears at Daeyu Winia Group.

Among these, a total of six cases are ones in which President Lee has been indicted, and people inside and outside the legal circles are paying attention to the possibility that the future committee's conclusion of abuse of prosecutorial power could lead to the cancellation of President Lee's indictment.

Some observations also suggest that if the future committee determines that there were serious illegal acts in the investigation and indictment process regarding President Lee-related cases, discussions led by the ruling-bloc camp on canceling the indictment could resume in earnest.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, Acting Prosecutor General who oversees the prosecution service, left room for possibility during his first commute to work on the 23rd of last month regarding questions related to the cancellation of President Lee's indictment, saying, "As a fact-finding investigation is currently underway by the fact-finding team, we will have to look at the results."

Attending the Ministry of Justice's parliamentary audit on the 8th, Acting Minister of Justice Lee Jin-su remarked, "Former Minister Jung Sung-ho also made it clear that the Ministry of Justice has no intention of ordering the cancellation of indictments through specific case directives," while adding, "How to handle subsequent measures [of the future committee] will depend on the content," which was interpreted as leaving room for maneuver.

(Photo provided by Ministry of Justice, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.