Police Arrest Yang Bu-nam, Democratic Party Legal Committee Chair, on Suspicion of Investigation Interference Request

The police have requested an arrest warrant for Yang Bu-nam, the Legal Committee Chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, who is suspected of receiving a large sum of legal fees in exchange for covering up an investigation.

On the 30th, the Anti-Corruption and Public Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency applied for a pre-arrest warrant against Chairman Yang on charges of violating the Attorney-at-Law Act. This comes about two months after the police raided Yang's law office in Seo-gu, Gwangju, in March.

The police suspect that after retiring from the Busan High Prosecutors' Office, Yang received a large legal fee around November 2020 from the operators of an online gambling site in Daegu in exchange for covering up an investigation into charges of operating a gambling space.

Among the total legal fees amounting to 280 million KRW, the police consider 99 million KRW given to Chairman Yang as not a legitimate legal fee but a bribe for covering up the investigation.

Earlier, at the end of last month and on the 10th of this month, the police summoned Chairman Yang as a suspect to investigate whether he received requests to cover up the investigation.

On the same day, Chairman Yang posted a statement on Facebook criticizing the police's request for an arrest warrant as "political oppression."

He stated, "I have actively cooperated with the police investigation," and added, "An arrest warrant application requires clear evidence of criminal charges and concerns about evidence destruction or flight risk, none of which apply to me." He also explained, "I did not receive legal fees under the pretext of covering up the investigation," and "I took on the case and defended it properly, and there was no illegality in the process."