The special investigation team at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, tasked with probing the alleged "false interview" by private developer Kim Man-bae of Daejang-dong, suspected of attempting to influence voter sentiment just before the last presidential election, will begin full-scale investigations starting this week.
According to the legal community on the 11th, Chief Prosecutor Kang Baek-shin, head of the special investigation team, and the prosecutors under him reviewed investigation records related to the 2011 Busan Savings Bank illegal loan allegations during the first weekend of the team’s formation on the 9th and 10th. The Busan Savings Bank illegal loan allegations form the main content of Kim’s interview. In the interview, Kim stated that President Yoon Seok-yeol, during his time as head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office’s Central Investigation Division, met with Jo Woo-hyung, a loan broker for Daejang-dong, and subsequently suppressed the investigation. The investigation team official said they reviewed the records to clarify whether the interview content was false. The case framework only holds if the interview content is false, as it would mean Kim and others fabricated fake news just before the election to manipulate public opinion. According to a prosecution source, Kim himself admitted during a prosecution investigation in June that the interview content was "false."
After reviewing the records, the prosecution is expected to launch a more detailed forced investigation this week, scrutinizing the reporting process. The legal community anticipates that a search and seizure operation will be conducted on 'Newstapa,' which reported the interview. Since the prosecution has shown intent to investigate the media outlets that followed up with reports and the forces behind the interview, the scope of search and seizure could expand to the media industry and the political sphere at large. Shin Hak-rim, former chairman of the Korean Federation of Journalists' Unions, who appeared at the prosecution on the 7th and was questioned for 14 hours until the early morning of the 8th, may also be subject to arrest warrants or other measures to secure the custody of related persons.
Analysis suggests that the success of the investigation hinges on uncovering the "connection" to the presidential election, suspected to be the motive behind the false interview, and the "quid pro quo" nature of financial transactions that took place after the interview.
The prosecution is closely monitoring the fact that Shin had a close relationship with the Democratic Party, including applying for a proportional representation nomination from the Democratic United Party, the predecessor of the Democratic Party. They suspect that based on this relationship, Shin may have conducted the interview with Kim to support Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party candidate at the time of the presidential election. Related circumstances have also emerged. The day after the interview was reported, Shin posted on his social media account a comment from an acquaintance saying, "How did you endure holding that (Kim Man-bae interview) for six months? Two days before the election," to which Shin replied in the comments, "Betrayal is a great art," and "Three days ago. Haha." When the acquaintance wrote that the interview was released "two days before the election," Shin immediately corrected it to "three days ago." This suggests a circumstance that Shin may have deliberately timed the release of an interview conducted about six months earlier to influence the presidential election just before voting day.
The prosecution has named this case not as a "false interview" but as "presidential election interference and public opinion manipulation." A prosecution official said, "This is a case where false information about a leading candidate was publicly announced and distorted just before the presidential election, attempting to manipulate the election system, which is the foundation of democracy under the constitution. The prosecution views this as a serious case of public opinion manipulation."
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