On the 9th, Seoul Central District Court Judge Lee Jong-rok, in charge of arrest warrants, dismissed the arrest warrant for Heo Gyeom, CEO and publisher of Hanmi Ilbo, on charges including violation of the Information and Communications Network Act. This is significant as the court upheld the pursuit of a "fair legal battle" against the prosecution's unreasonable request for arrest warrants.

Detention is not a tool for investigative convenience. It is certainly not a pre-emptive punishment for guilt. It is merely an exceptional compulsory measure permitted by criminal justice. Therefore, the law allows detention only in limited circumstances, such as the risk of flight or destruction of evidence. Article 70 of the Criminal Procedure Act also stipulates absence of a fixed residence, fear of evidence destruction, or flight or fear of flight as grounds for detention.

The principle is simple. It should only be allowed exceptionally when there is a risk that the investigation and trial will collapse if the suspect's whereabouts are not immediately secured. However, the request for an arrest warrant for Heo Gyeom, CEO of Hanmi Ilbo, deviates from this simple principle.

Moreover, this is not the first warrant request but a re-request made after supplementary investigation. This is where doubts escalate. Why are the investigative authorities fixated on arrest warrants in this case as well?

The Mindset of Detaining First

The essence of this case is not a violent crime or an arrest in the act. It is a typical legal case involving disputes over articles, manuscripts, posts, sources, editing and publication, the falsity of expressions, defamatory intent, public interest, and the scope of responsibility.

In such cases, the principle is to allow for thorough defense rights while calmly disputing the facts and legal principles in a state of no detention. However, the investigative authorities attempted to secure the suspect first.

A significant portion of the case-related materials has already been secured through searches and seizures. If key materials such as articles, manuscripts, posts, and messengers remain as electronic evidence, the remaining issues are not about the existence of evidence, but about how to interpret and legally evaluate that evidence.

In other words, this case is a dispute of legal principles, not a case of evidence destruction. Pushing for a re-requested warrant in such a case can only be interpreted as an impatient investigative will to "just lock them up and see" rather than rigorous investigation.

In particular, placing the 5.18 related case, which the investigation team did not directly investigate, at the beginning of the warrant request raises suspicions of capitalizing on the political atmosphere of constitutional amendment. It is our position that such a decision does not appear to be the sole judgment of the investigation team.

The Dangerous Leap of Inflating Conspiracy

What is most striking in the warrant's contents is the over-interpretation of conspiracy.

The typical structure of an online newspaper involves external writers sending manuscripts electronically, and the editorial department reviewing and publishing them. This is a common operational method adopted by most online media today.

However, the investigative authorities are attempting to reconstruct this general structure as a criminal conspiracy. Merely by virtue of being the publisher, they are comprehensively bundling individual articles and expressions, and describing the writer, editing, publication, and sharing as if they were all part of a single conspiracy.

However, conspiracy is not a concept established by broad impressions. The specific content and division of roles must be identified: who agreed with whom, when, on what content, and for what crime.

Without such substantiation, conspiracy is not a legal concept but merely a convenient narrative for the investigative authorities.

What is evident in the case of CEO Heo Gyeom is precisely this dangerous leap. Equating the position of publisher as a basis for responsibility and as a basis for conspiracy are entirely different matters. However, the investigative authorities are blurring that boundary.

Re-requesting is Not Proof of Legitimacy

The fact that it is a re-requested warrant also cannot be overlooked.

If the necessity of detention was firmly established from the outset, the reason for the structure of re-requesting after a request for supplementary investigation needs to be explained first.

What new elements emerged after the supplementary investigation? Did the risk of flight suddenly arise? Apart from the already secured electronic evidence, did a new risk of evidence destruction emerge? Or was the initial insufficient logic supplemented by combining separate cases and over-interpreting the conspiracy?

Re-requesting a warrant does not automatically imply legitimacy. It may, in fact, be an indication of the fragility of the initial logic. In such a situation, issuing another arrest warrant repeatedly reflects the investigative authorities' pride and obsession rather than a repetition of legal necessity.

Was Expanding the Case Prioritized Over the Victim?

A more questionable aspect is the issue of victim investigation.

It is said that the cases involving Lee Jae-myung and Kim Hyun-ji were not directly reported by the victims. Of course, defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act is a crime where prosecution is difficult if the victim does not wish it, meaning investigations can be initiated through reports from third parties or by the investigative authorities' own knowledge. However, if the victim expresses their unwillingness to pursue punishment, it creates constraints on indictment.

However, precisely because of this, investigative authorities must first clearly confirm the victim's experience of harm, the extent of the harm, and their willingness to pursue punishment.

If the case did not originate from the direct complaint of the victim, the investigation of the actual victim and confirmation of their willingness to pursue punishment should be the starting point of the investigation.

However, the prosecution and police have not adequately disclosed the process of prior investigation and confirmation in this regard.

If, in a case without a direct complaint from the victim, the conspiracy and necessity of detention were immediately highlighted without clear disclosure of these basic procedures, one cannot help but ask whether the starting point of the investigation was victim relief or case expansion.

Given that defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act is structured such that prosecution is constrained if the victim expresses their unwillingness to pursue punishment, confirming the victim's intentions is not a secondary issue but a core procedure.

5.18 Inclusion, the Mastermind Must Be Revealed

A more questionable aspect is the structure of the case. The investigative authorities placed the 5.18 related matter prominently at the beginning of this warrant request.

However, this matter is not one that the investigation team that requested this warrant has directly investigated. What was the purpose of merging a matter that had been under separate investigation for a long time and placing it at the beginning of this warrant request?

There is suspicion that this is an attempt to borrow the narrative that 5.18 is included in the preamble of the constitutional amendment. It is difficult to believe this was the investigation team's independent decision.

Warrant review is a procedure to examine whether there is a risk of flight or destruction of evidence for the accused. However, the investigative authorities chose a structure that combined various matters to create a moral impression and political weight rather than a legal judgment.

What the court must review are the conditions for detention, not a narrative that maximizes the unfavorable image surrounding the accused. The flow of expanding conspiracy, linking separate cases, and pressuring again with a re-requested warrant converges into a single conclusion.

This is difficult to avoid criticism of excessive investigation, or more directly, forced investigation, rather than rigorous investigation.

The Frame of Flight and Pressure on Sources

The logic of flight risk is also weak. It is unreasonable to easily apply a flight frame to a current publisher operating a media outlet openly in Korea, especially one running an online newspaper that has secured 400,000 readers within seven months of its launch, as well as a print weekly.

Jumping from temporary organizational issues with address registration to outright absence of residence or fear of flight is a leap of presumption, not law.

When circumstances such as maternal death, relocation, and delay in selling the existing residence are interpreted as signs of concealment, the investigation shifts from fact-finding to impression formation.

The issue of source protection is similar. In expression-related cases, source protection is not mere stubbornness. It is a minimum ethic for the existence of the media.

Of course, it cannot be an absolute shield. However, if even limited reservations for source protection are immediately construed as non-cooperation with the investigation or evidence destruction, who would then dare to provide tips that criticize power?

Ultimately, such investigations extend beyond the detention of one individual to a chilling effect on critical reporting overall. Especially if the target is the CEO of a media company, an arrest warrant inevitably serves as a signal that not only compels the detention of an individual but also pressures the entire media company, journalistic practices, and all forms of expression.

Broadly speaking, this case is a dispute on the sensitive boundary between freedom of expression and the protection of individual reputation.

The more such cases are, the more they require calm deliberation rather than hasty detention. The reason the law protects even inconvenient expressions is to prevent power from arbitrarily suppressing them.

However, this arrest warrant request has crossed that boundary too easily. The method of inflating conspiracy, linking separate cases, and pushing for warrants again after supplementary investigation does not demonstrate the rigor of the investigation but rather its unreasonableness.

Excessive Investigation Halted by the Judiciary

The reason we have refrained from legal action against some media outlets, the Democratic Party, and President Lee Jae-myung, who labeled the "Chinese spy ring arrest case" as fake news, is clear.

It is because we believed that the media's responsibility lies not in resorting to the language of punishment, but in revealing conclusions with facts and evidence in the arena of verification. We have adhered to the principle that verification comes before accusation, and proof before labeling.

Ultimately, the core of this case is simple. Is it truly necessary to detain Heo Gyeom, CEO of Hanmi Ilbo, right now? If the answer to that question is not clear, detention should stop. The form of re-requesting does not legitimize unreasonable logic.

Investigations that inflate responsibility in the name of conspiracy and repeatedly pressure through the format of re-requesting are closer to abuse of authority than law enforcement.

The dismissal of the arrest warrant for CEO Heo Gyeom was a moment that showed the independence of the judiciary has not yet collapsed. At the same time, it was a judgment that left hope that justice still lives in this land.