[Initial Report] Korean Version of FBI Caught in Fairness Controversy

"It was 'just as expected.' The first head of the National Investigation Headquarters (Guksubon), known as the Korean version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was ultimately appointed as a current police officer and a pro-government figure. Despite going through a public recruitment process for over two months to select an external candidate to protect Guksubon’s independence and neutrality, it was nothing more than a mere formality.

With the adjustment of investigative authority between prosecutors and police, the police were granted the authority to conclude investigations earlier this year. The police can now independently conduct investigations without prosecutors’ supervision and can close cases deemed to have no charges within the police itself. This means they have obtained formidable investigative power. This is the background for the establishment of Guksubon, which will serve as the control tower for police investigations. Approximately 30,000 personnel involved in investigative work within the police will be under Guksubon’s command. Soon, the National Intelligence Service’s counterintelligence investigative authority will also be transferred, and the security investigation unit will be absorbed into Guksubon. It is literally a mammoth organization.

Because of this, who would become the first head of Guksubon was a matter of intense interest. Since the position requires investigative fairness, independence, and political neutrality, the prevailing expectation was that an external figure free from internal police influence would be selected. Of course, a police officer with expertise could also take the role, but given the nature of investigations, which are rife with requests and complaints, it is impossible to avoid controversy over 'protecting one’s own.' The government was aware of this and set a policy to appoint an outsider, initiating a public recruitment process at the end of last year. Five candidates, including former judges and lawyers, applied. However, at the end of last month, the National Police Agency made a surprise announcement appointing Nam Gu-jun, then head of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, who was not on the list of applicants, as the first head of Guksubon.

Director Nam is known as an experienced investigator, but coincidentally, from August 2018 for one year, he was dispatched to the Blue House’s Office for National Policy Planning under the current administration. After returning as head of the Cyber Safety Bureau of the National Police Agency, he was promoted to Commissioner General at the end of that year and transferred to lead the Gyeongnam Police Agency. He is also a high school junior of Jeon Hae-cheol, Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and a close aide to President Moon Jae-in. It is reported that Minister Jeon played a significant role in Director Nam’s appointment. The police are an agency under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in terms of organizational structure. Although the head of Guksubon is formally recommended by the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency and proposed by the Minister of the Interior and Safety, the final appointing authority is the President. This personnel decision has led to ongoing criticism that the external recruitment was merely a formality and that a pro-government figure was handpicked. The National Police Agency further fueled controversy by omitting Director Nam’s Blue House work experience from the profile distributed to the media immediately after his appointment.

Investigative authority is one of the most powerful powers of the state and is directly connected to the lives of the people. As seen in cases like the Samrye Nara Supermarket incident and the Hwaseong 8th case, many have suffered wrongful imprisonment due to police coercion and fabrication. Cases where victims and perpetrators are reversed during investigations are numerous. The political police’s characteristics, such as in the Druking comment manipulation case and allegations of Blue House-directed investigations, rival those of political prosecutors. This year, public perception of the police has worsened further due to incidents such as the so-called Jeong-in case and the assault on a taxi driver by Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Yong-gu.

President Moon Jae-in attended the ‘Police Day’ ceremony last October, praising the launch of Guksubon and reiterating the importance of investigative independence, fairness, and political neutrality. However, amid ongoing distrust of the police organization, the President himself appointed the first head of Guksubon from within the police, and moreover, a pro-government figure, thereby damaging the foundation of trust in the fairness of investigations within the 130,000-strong police organization. The investigation into allegations of speculation by employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), led by Guksubon, is both an opportunity and a crisis for the police to restore their honor. If mishandled, calls for police reform will inevitably intensify. If the government repays the century-long wish of the police, entrusted to them, with the most painful self-inflicted wound, the future of the police will be bleak.

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