Prosecution voices opposition to permanent special prosecutor... "Do you send prosecutors when you don't trust the prosecution?"

"Don't pull out the very foundations of a collapsing house"... Criticism of prosecutor who raised 'Coupang suspicion'

Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office [Yonhap News File Photo]

Voices of opposition from within the prosecution are continuing regarding the Ministry of Justice's decision to hand over the 'suspicion of losing the seal sticker of Kunjinbeopsa' and the 'suspicion of external pressure for not indicting Coupang's severance pay,' which were audit matters of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, to a permanent special prosecutor.

According to legal circles on the 27th, Gong Bong-suk, a prosecutor at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office who previously served as the second prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, wrote on the internal network Epros on the 24th, "I oppose the dispatch of prosecutors and prosecution investigators to the permanent special prosecutor, which is intended to be carried out because you don't trust prosecutors." He added, "It is extremely unpleasant and very unfair that the National Assembly, not content with pushing forward as if guilt has been confirmed in a case currently under mutual audit, is using this to imply that the prosecution should be abolished."

Regarding Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon's remark that the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's audits have 'aspects of protecting one's own,' he asked, "If you don't like the results of other audit cases raised by the political sphere, will you conduct a special investigation for all of them?"

Prosecutor Gong stated, "It means you don't trust prosecutors and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's audits, so you are resorting to a permanent special prosecutor, a neutral third-party institution. Please strictly uphold that neutrality and do not pull out the very foundations of a poor, collapsing house." He added, "With our limited means, five prosecutors and 30 public officials are not a small number."

Park Cheol-wan, head of the Busan District Prosecutors' Office's Major Economic Crimes Investigation Division, also wrote, "I hope many people will deeply consider whether it is appropriate for the President to make public remarks defining the nature of a case before an investigation has even begun."

There was also a critical view of Senior Prosecutor Moon Ji-seok, who revealed the suspicion of external pressure in the Coupang investigation at the National Assembly.

In a comment, Jang Jin-young, head of the criminal division 3 at the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office, wrote, "Given the circumstances of the investigation team for the alleged external pressure in the Dongbu District Prosecutors' Office's drug investigation, will Senior Prosecutor Moon also be dispatched to the permanent special prosecutor? Seeing him express his opinion as if it were the only correct answer on matters that even his colleagues have legal doubts about, I question from whom he wants to recover what kind of honor."

The Kunjinbeopsa and Coupang suspicions are the 19th investigation targets since the special prosecutor system was introduced in 1999. This is the first time that a special prosecutor has been designated to investigate within the prosecution itself. Yonhap News