Yoon Seok-yeol's 'Judge Surveillance' Investigation Assigned to Seoul High Prosecutors' Office Inspection Division

During the inspection process, the criminal division investigates 'bypassing command reporting'

Yoon Seok-yeol, Prosecutor General [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The Seoul High Prosecutors' Office's Inspection Department has been assigned to investigate the abuse of authority allegations against Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol related to the 'judge surveillance' suspicion. Meanwhile, the 'command-level report bypass' suspicion during the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's inspection process will be investigated by the Criminal Department of the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office.

According to the legal community on the 11th, the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Cho Sang-chul) assigned the two cases to the Inspection Department and the Criminal Department respectively the day before. A Seoul High Prosecutors' Office official explained, "Since the two cases are completely different in nature, it was inappropriate to have the same department handle both, so they were divided and assigned." The Inspection Department and the Criminal Department began reviewing the case files received from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and started their investigations.

Earlier, Deputy Prosecutor General Cho Nam-gwan of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office instructed that the case in which the Ministry of Justice requested an investigation into Prosecutor General Yoon regarding the judge surveillance suspicion, and the case in which the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Inspection Division 3 had registered and was investigating Yoon as an unidentified person, be assigned to the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office. Deputy Prosecutor Cho also ordered the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office to investigate the 'command-level report bypass' suspicion during the Supreme Prosecutors' Office inspection process, which had been handled by the Human Rights Policy Office. All related investigation reference materials were also handed over.

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office judged that it was inappropriate for Inspection Chief Han Dong-soo to have obtained the court analysis document through an unidentified route, delivered it to the Ministry of Justice, and then received it back as investigation reference material. Some suspect that the unidentified route through which Chief Han received the document was Shim Jae-cheol, Director of the Ministry of Justice's Prosecutor's Office.

Additionally, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office determined that Inspection Division 3 Chief Heo Jeong-su's registration of Prosecutor General Yoon as an unidentified person under the sole command of Chief Han was a violation of the legal reporting obligations. It also viewed as inappropriate the fact that the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Inspection Department frequently informed Ministry of Justice officials about the progress during the search and seizure of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Investigation Information Office, conducted with the cooperation of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Digital Forensics Team.

As the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office embarks on a full-scale investigation, attention is focused on whether compulsory investigations will be conducted on those involved in the case. Recently, in the KakaoTalk accounts of those who saved the phone numbers of Director Shim and Ministry of Justice Inspection Officer Park Eun-jung, the two appeared in the 'new friends' list, raising suspicions that they might have changed their phones in preparation for the investigation.

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