Suspicion Surrounding Choo Mi-ae's Son, Additional Complaint Also Assigned to Dongbu District Prosecutors' Office

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The case additionally reported and requested for investigation regarding allegations related to the military service of Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae's son has been assigned to the Criminal Division 1 of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Deok-gon). The Eastern District Prosecutors' Office is already handling related reported cases.

According to the legal community on the 8th, the prosecution assigned the case reported and requested for investigation by the People Power Party and the civic group Legal Action for Establishing the Rule of Law (Beopse-ryeon) concerning the extension of military leave of Minister Choo's son, Seo Mo, to the Criminal Division 1 of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office.

The Criminal Division 1 has been investigating the reported case regarding Seo's alleged "special leave" for over eight months.

Earlier, the People Power Party filed a report to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office accusing Seo, former aides of Minister Choo, and military officials?five people in total?of violating the Military Criminal Act, based on a recorded phone conversation indicating that the person who inquired by phone about Seo's leave extension with the unit officials was an aide to Minister Choo.

Beopse-ryeon also argued that it is highly likely that Minister Choo instructed her aide to inquire or request the extension of military leave, which could be considered abuse of authority and obstruction of the exercise of rights.

As suspicions regarding Seo's military service grow, the Criminal Division 1 of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office recently increased the number of prosecutors handling the case related to Minister Choo's son to three. Among the three is Deputy Chief Prosecutor Park Seok-yong of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, who joined from the day before after being seconded upon the request of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office. Prosecutor Park was in charge of this case until last month's personnel reshuffle, after which he was promoted to deputy chief prosecutor and transferred to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

Meanwhile, the investigation team is currently under suspicion of having deleted from the records the testimony of a witness who claimed to have received a phone call from Minister Choo's aide.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.