"Due to Prosecution, Death of Lee's Close Aide" Seol Hoon... Kim Geun-sik: "Are They Using Even Death for Political Attacks?" (Summary)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] Regarding the close aide of Lee Nak-yeon, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, who was involved in the Optimus scandal and took an extreme measure, Democratic Party lawmaker Seol Hoon pointed out that "the prosecution is cruelly and excessively digging into this situation." In response, People Power Party lawmaker Hong Moon-pyo cautioned against overinterpretation, saying, "It is just speculation and prediction." Professor Kim Geun-sik of Gyeongnam National University, from the same party, criticized, saying, "They are even using death for political attacks."

On the morning of the 4th, Lawmaker Seol appeared on YTN Radio's 'Hwang Bo-seon's Start of the Morning' and said, "The prosecution's behavior has been flowing in the same pattern from the time of President Roh Moo-hyun to Lee's Deputy Chief of Staff Lee," expressing his view.

He said, "The prosecution is truly cruel and excessively digging into this situation," adding, "The prosecution's behavior has not changed at all from the time of President Roh Moo-hyun to now."

Regarding this, Lawmaker Hong said, "The circumstances reported by the media so far indicate that the Optimus case is deeply involved and has affected the leader, but it is impossible that the prosecution's actions led to the person dying as Lawmaker Seol claims," and pointed out, "No matter how much distrust the prosecution faces, is there anyone in the Democratic Party who knows more about the clearly revealed Optimus case? Since the leader is silent on this, we have no way of knowing."

He added, "Other than the fact that a close aide of the leader was involved in this huge fraud case called Optimus and took such an extreme measure, everything else is prediction and speculation," and said, "It is not right to say that the prosecution caused this person to die."

In response, Lawmaker Seol rebutted, "It is not the Optimus case but about renting a copier, for which 110,000 won per month was supposed to be paid, but this was not properly recorded. That is why this situation arose."

Regarding this, Professor Kim, affiliated with the People Power Party's Songpa-byeong district committee, criticized on Facebook, saying, "Are they even exploiting the unfortunate death of the deceased as a means to attack the prosecution?" and "Lawmaker Seol has no blood or tears."

Professor Kim added, "First, we should pray for the deceased's soul and appeal for self-reflection from all political circles to remove the shadow of death cast over politics," and said, "Therefore, I did not rashly question whether there were bigger suspicions beyond the copier rental fee."

He emphasized, "I did not abruptly interrogate whether there was some heavy burden that led to the extreme choice rather than the 760,000 won rental fee," and said, "Anyone can interpret this as a tragic death where the person bore everything alone out of sincere loyalty to the leader, not as an excessive investigation by the prosecution, so we are reflecting first on the tragedy of politics and death."

He questioned, "But does Lawmaker Seol even use the unfortunate death in politics as a tool for attacking the prosecution and political offensives?" and "Do progressives abandon even the minimum human compassion for political purposes?"

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