Current and Former Prosecutor Officials: "Kim Hak-ui's 'Illegal Departure' Clear Abuse of Authority"... "Investigation Practices? Nonsense"

“Investigation Team Prosecutors Have No Authority to Investigate” Common Opinion
Lee Yong-gu, Lee Sung-yoon, Lee Jong-geun... Multiple Key Officials from Ministry of Justice and Prosecution Involved
Ministry of Justice and Related Parties Fail to Provide Clear Explanation

Former Deputy Minister of Justice Kim Hak-ui. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] The 'departure ban' measure imposed on former Deputy Minister of Justice Kim Hak-ui in March 2019 is clearly illegal in terms of procedure, and there is a common voice among current and former prosecution officials that those involved should be criminally punished for abuse of authority.

Several key officials currently holding important positions in the Ministry of Justice and prosecution, including Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Yong-gu, Seoul Central District Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon, and Criminal Affairs Chief of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Lee Jong-geun, were involved in the departure ban process at the time, so a significant impact is expected depending on the results of the prosecution investigation.

On the 13th, a current prosecution official A said, “The reason for dispatching prosecutors to the Past Affairs Investigation Team of the prosecution at that time was to assist numerous external members in reviewing the vast amount of investigation records,” and pointed out, “Since their status was merely that of an assistant to the investigation team, they had no investigative authority.”

Former prosecution official B also said, “The point being missed now is that Lee Gyu-won was not a prosecutor at the time,” adding, “As a dispatched member of the Past Affairs Investigation Team, he was only granted the authority to view records, not the authority to investigate the Kim Hak-ui case.”

This directly contradicts the Ministry of Justice’s explanation the previous day that Prosecutor Lee, who belonged to the Past Affairs Investigation Team at the time, “was assigned as acting prosecutor at Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office, which is a law enforcement agency authorized to assign internal investigation numbers and request emergency departure bans.”

The fact that Prosecutor Lee wrote the case number of an incident in which former Deputy Minister Kim was already cleared in 2013 on the emergency departure ban request form, and later arbitrarily entered the internal investigation number of Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office when submitting the emergency departure ban approval request to the Ministry of Justice, is also a common opinion among prosecutors that this cannot be seen as a usual investigative practice as the Ministry of Justice claims.

Prosecution official C said, “Even when urgently arresting drug offenders, a proper internal investigation number is always attached,” and added, “Having worked as a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, I have never seen a case like this.”

B pointed out, “Even prosecutors in the same department cannot request a departure ban on suspects in cases being investigated by another prosecutor. But in this case, there was no prosecutor D investigating, yet prosecutor E said, ‘I will soon request an investigation, so please impose a departure ban,’ which is nonsense.”

He continued, “Prosecutor Lee, as well as those involved who ordered or condoned such illegal acts, clearly fall under abuse of authority and falsification of official documents.”

At the time, Deputy Minister Lee, who was the Legal Affairs Director of the Ministry of Justice and a member of the Ministry’s Past Affairs Committee, is known to have come up with the idea of the departure ban on former Deputy Minister Kim. Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon, then head of the Anti-Corruption and Strong Crime Division of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, reportedly contacted a senior official at Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office to attempt post-incident management. Also, Prosecutor Lee Jong-geun, who was the policy advisor to Minister Park Sang-ki, personally visited the Immigration Office to manage the situation. Currently, he is in a position to receive reports and supervise the investigation of this case by the Criminal Division 3 of Anyang District Prosecutors’ Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Je-seong), and opposition parties are calling for the introduction of a special prosecutor or the appointment of a special investigator.

The Ministry of Justice and related parties such as Prosecutor Lee have yet to provide any substantial explanation. However, Deputy Minister Lee expressed regret over media reports describing him as the planner of the emergency departure ban, stating, “I was not well aware of the specific procedures of the departure ban at the time and could not have been involved.”