Pressured to Reverse Rejection of Child's Documents for Acceptance
Revealed Providing Benefits to Airline in Exchange for Hiring Favor
After the child of a former Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport employee was rejected in the document screening stage for regular employment at Eastar Jet, testimony emerged that inside the company there were talks of "making the plane unable to take off," leading to a belated notification of acceptance.
On the 12th, former Cheongju branch manager Mr. A appeared as a witness at the Eastar Jet recruitment corruption trial held at Jeonju District Court Criminal Division 4 (Presiding Judge Kim Mi-kyung).
When the prosecutor asked Mr. A, "Did you hear that there was an uproar when the daughter of former Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport employee Mr. B, who worked at the Cheongju Airport branch aviation information office, was rejected in the Eastar Jet document screening?" Mr. A replied, "(An Eastar Jet headquarters official) expressed it that way over the phone."
The prosecutor then presented Mr. A’s prosecution investigation record.
The record included the prosecutor’s questions: "Mr. B’s daughter applied but was rejected in the document screening due to disqualification, and a claim was made," and "When the HR manager announced the document screening passers excluding Mr. B’s daughter, another department said 'They made the plane unable to take off, there was an uproar,' and then a belated acceptance notification was given. Is that correct?"
To these questions, Mr. A reportedly answered, "I also heard such stories," and "I called the Eastar Jet headquarters to check if Mr. B’s daughter was on the list of document screening passers."
In fact, Mr. B’s daughter was rejected in the document screening but passed the first and second interviews and was finally accepted.
Mr. A testified, "Upon hearing that Mr. B’s child applied to Eastar Jet, I wanted to help due to personal acquaintance," and "I conveyed information about Mr. B’s child to the company."
However, Mr. B, who appeared earlier as a witness in this court, claimed, "After my child was rejected in the document screening, I did not ask anyone at Eastar Jet for help (until the final acceptance)."
The prosecution is separately conducting a trial on the grounds that Mr. B provided conveniences to Eastar Jet regarding aircraft takeoff and landing approval order and times, and aircraft runway approach directions in exchange for his child’s recruitment.
The trial that day concluded after questioning two witnesses, and the next trial is scheduled for July 5.
Meanwhile, former Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Sang-jik and former Eastar Jet CEO Choi Jong-gu were indicted on charges of obstruction of business for pressuring HR managers to hire 147 applicants (76 of whom were finally accepted) who scored below the passing criteria in document screening and interviews from November 2015 to March 2019.
The prosecution judged that they committed fraud by allowing applicants who did not meet the document screening criteria to pass and instructing that certain applicants be accepted unconditionally.
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