'Forgery of Indictment' Former Prosecutor Acquitted in First Trial… Public Corruption Investigation Office "Appeals"

A former prosecutor who was prosecuted on charges of forging a complainant's accusation was acquitted in the first trial. On the 7th, Judge Ha Jin-woo of the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 22 said, "It is difficult to see that former prosecutor Yoon had the intent to forge official documents based solely on the evidence submitted by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO)," and acquitted former Busan District Prosecutor Yoon Mo, who was charged with forgery of official documents.

Earlier, former prosecutor Yoon was indicted without detention in September last year on charges of copying another accusation previously submitted by the same complainant and filing it in the investigation records after the complainant's accusation was lost in December 2015. This case became controversial when it was revealed that Yoon was the daughter of the chairman of the country's largest financial holding company. He was previously indicted in 2018 on charges of forging the 'cover' of the accusation and received a suspended sentence of six months in prison in 2020. Subsequently, in July 2021, Im Eun-jung, head prosecutor of Daegu District Prosecutors' Office, reported to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission that 'the Prosecutor General and others dismissed the case without disciplinary action and accepted Yoon's resignation in 2016,' which led to an investigation by the CIO.

On the day, the CIO immediately announced its intention to appeal the court's acquittal. The CIO stated, "The court confirmed a guilty verdict for the defendant regarding the 'act of replacing the cover of the official document' prosecuted by the prosecution, but acquitted him on the grounds that it was difficult to recognize criminal intent for other forged documents filed behind the same official document cover," adding, "This is a contradictory judgment that makes no sense to anyone." "Moreover, it is hard to accept the acquittal when the CIO prosecutor even changed the defendant's status to an indirect perpetrator as recommended by the trial court," it added.