[Anchor]

A photograph has been revealed showing three individuals together: Kim Seung-won, nominee for Minister of Justice; a broker who relayed complaints from a COVID-19 new drug company to the nominee; and the judge who dismissed the arrest warrant for the company's CEO. The broker, who uploaded the photo, flaunted their close ties by calling the nominee her eternal mentor.

Reporter Kim Kwan-jin has the details.

[Reporter]

This is a photograph of nominee for Minister of Justice Kim Seung-won taken alongside one woman and one man.

It is estimated to have been taken in February 2022, about a year before prosecutors launched an investigation into suspicions that lobbying had been conducted with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety regarding a new drug.

The woman to the left of nominee Kim is Yang, who in October 2021 sent a text message to nominee Kim asking him to urge the then-Minister of Food and Drug Safety to swiftly process the clinical trial approval for a COVID-19 new drug. The man to the right is Judge Jeong, who was in charge of issuing warrants at the Seoul Western District Court at the time of the prosecution's investigation.

Judge Jeong dismissed an arrest warrant in 2023 for Kang, the CEO of the development company that had received approval for the new drug's clinical trials.

Prosecutors subsequently re-applied for the arrest warrant. The second review was conducted by a different warrant-dedicated judge, and Kang's arrest warrant was issued.

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon claimed that text messages emerged during the investigation showing nominee Kim calling Judge Jeong to a drinking gathering with Yang, indicating that the investigation team had grasped the relationship among the three people. He also claimed that the Supreme Prosecutors' Office had requested the Supreme Court to exclude Judge Jeong from the warrant review, but the request was rejected.

[Han Dong-hoon / Independent Lawmaker: If this does not accord with the facts, would Judge Jeong, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Prosecution Office, or lawmaker Kim Seung-won not issue even a single word of rebuttal?]

On social media where she posted the photo in question, Yang claimed that she first met nominee Kim in 2004 when he was a judge, writing, "My eternal mentor." Regarding Judge Jeong, she wrote that they met while exercising together.

In 2011, after nominee Kim had opened a private law practice, Yang was indicted on charges of failing to pay severance pay to employees while operating an entertainment bar in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. According to the judgment at the time, nominee Kim was Yang's legal counsel.

Nominee Kim's side explained that four months before nominee Kim contacted the then-Minister of Food and Drug Safety in October 2021, the company in question had already been proceeding with preliminary consultations in accordance with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's review procedures, and that nominee Kim's contact did not accelerate the clinical trial approval.

(Video capture: Oh Young-chun, Kim Yong-woo | Video editing: Jang Hyun-ki | Design: Choi Jae-young)