Choo Mi-ae: "Prosecutors Bear the Greatest Responsibility for Corruption in the Real Estate Market... What Is Yoon Seok-yeol's Position?"

"'Prosecutor Republic' and 'Corruption Republic', Very Similar"

Former Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Midam] Former Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae criticized on the 14th, referring to the past 'Busan Haeundae LCT (LCT) case' investigation, saying, "The prosecution bears the greatest responsibility for the failure to properly address corruption in the real estate market."

In a post on her Facebook that day, former Minister Choo said, "The opposition party is shaking public sentiment with the LH (Korea Land and Housing Corporation) case and supporting the prosecution while resisting prosecution reform. However, the 'Prosecutorial Republic' and the 'Corruption Republic' are very similar," she said.

She pointed out, "23 years ago, I was the one who uncovered the development privilege case of Lee Young-bok, the actual owner of LCT, as an unprecedented corruption case," adding, "Has the prosecution perhaps not changed at all over the two decades?"

She continued, "From 1997 to 2000, I continuously exposed that Busan area developer Lee Young-bok colluded with the legal community, political circles, and even conglomerates. I saw it as something that could not proceed without protection from central power, going beyond simple local corruption," and said, "The IMF foreign exchange crisis at the time was partly caused by the distortion of capital flow due to corruption and collusion between politics and business. The prosecution also bore great responsibility for failing to properly investigate power-involved suspicious cases such as the Suseo corruption and Hanbo incident, which were real estate development corruption cases."

Former Minister Choo added, "The prosecution tended to downplay and conceal collusion cases between politics and business, never even conducting internal investigations, and despite the responsibility of investigative agencies to find evidence, they resisted by saying 'we will investigate if evidence comes out,'" and claimed, "Lee Young-bok's business methods are similar now as they were then. Although I collected various evidence and reported it through the 1997 National Assembly audit, the case was referred to the Board of Audit and Inspection to buy time, and the prosecution ignored the investigation."

Regarding a report by a media outlet on the 12th stating that "the prosecution investigating Lee Young-bok at the time has now become the chairman of LCT," she said, "I doubted my own eyes and ears. I was furious thinking, 'Can the prosecution be so corrupt and yet so confident?'" and questioned, "What does former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl's stance mean now, that the prosecution can properly investigate and be just when investigating large-scale real estate corruption?"

She went on to point out, "The forces that promoted the real estate invincibility myth like Lee Young-bok are the prosecution that had powerful investigation and prosecution authority but failed to properly investigate and prosecute due to collusion."

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