The court rejected the detention review petition for Yoo Hyuk-ki (50), the second son of former Semo Group chairman Yoo Byung-eun (who died in 2014), who was recently arrested on charges of embezzlement amounting to around 25 billion KRW.
According to the legal community on the 8th, the Incheon District Court dismissed Yoo's detention review petition filed on the grounds that "there was illegality in the execution of the arrest warrant by the prosecution" after he was detained on the 5th on charges of embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. A detention review is a procedure in which the suspect challenges the legality of their detention and requests a re-evaluation by the court; if the court accepts the petition, the prosecution must release the suspect.
The defense argued that the arrest warrant executed on the airplane included tax evasion charges, which are not crimes eligible for extradition, raising questions about the legality of the arrest warrant's execution.
Yoo's lawyer explained, "When the Korean prosecution first requested extradition from the United States in 2014, the arrest warrant submitted only listed the embezzlement charge of 29.2 billion KRW. However, the following year, the prosecution returned the first arrest warrant and obtained a second arrest warrant adding tax evasion charges amounting to around 1 billion KRW, then requested extradition from the U.S.," but the detention review was ultimately dismissed.
The second son of former Samho Group chairman Yoo Byung-eon, Yoo Hyuk-gi, arrived in South Korea through Incheon International Airport on the morning of the 4th, nine years after the Sewol ferry disaster, and is being escorted to the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office. 2023.8.4 [Photo by Yonhap News]
According to Article 15 (Principle of Specificity) of the Korea-U.S. Extradition Treaty, a criminal cannot be punished in the requesting country for crimes other than those for which extradition is permitted. If the Korean prosecution wants to indict Yoo on additional charges, they must obtain consent from U.S. authorities.
Yoo is suspected of conspiring with affiliate company representatives close to his father to embezzle a total of 25 billion KRW under the pretext of consulting fees and other expenses, transferring the money to personal accounts or overseas corporations. Earlier, the Incheon District Prosecutors' Special Investigation Team identified the Yoo family as the actual controlling shareholders of the shipping company Cheonghaejin Marine, shortly after the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, and conducted a large-scale investigation into management corruption.
The prosecution judged Yoo to be the "management successor" of his father, former chairman Yoo, requested extradition from the U.S., and recently forcibly repatriated him from the United States, nine years after the Sewol ferry disaster.
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