[Initial Perspective] Police Let 100 Days Pass Since 'Yonggu Lee Investigation'

Lee Yong-gu, Deputy Minister of Justice, is attending the 1st Subcommittee on Bill Examination meeting held at the National Assembly on January 5th. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Koh Hyung-kwang] Today (the 27th) marks the 94th day since the police investigation officially began. As many as 13 investigators have been assigned. This is neither a case of chasing a serial killer nor a large-scale drug bust operation. It is a very ordinary incident where a drunken passenger assaulted a taxi driver. Normally, one detective would complete the case and send it to the prosecution within one to two weeks. However, in this case, more than ten detectives have been involved, struggling for over three months.

The unique aspect of this case is that the passenger who committed the assault is a high-ranking official at the vice ministerial level. He is Lee Yong-gu, the Vice Minister of Justice, who participated in the ‘Moon Jae-in Camp’ during the 2017 presidential election and later served as the head of the Legal Affairs Office at the Ministry of Justice, making him a key figure in the current administration.

The incident is already well known. On November 6 last year (when he was still a lawyer), Lee drank alcohol and fell asleep while taking a taxi home. Upon arriving at his destination, his home in Seocho-gu, Seoul, when the taxi driver woke him up, Lee grabbed the back of the driver’s neck, shook him, and hurled insults. Although he was in a situation to be arrested on the spot, the police did not book Lee, citing that the two parties had reached an agreement and that there was no black box footage to prove the crime, and closed the case as a preliminary investigation.

However, it was later revealed that the taxi driver showed the black box footage of the assault to Sergeant A of the Seocho Police Station, who was in charge of the case, but the sergeant dismissed it by saying, "I will pretend I did not see it." This raised suspicions of a lenient investigation. On January 24, the police admitted that "some facts confirmed that the investigator had viewed the footage" and formed a joint fact-finding team for a combined inquiry and investigation, starting a belated probe. Since then, 100 days have passed.

The investigation should clarify whether Sergeant A reported the black box footage to his superiors at the police station and whether any requests or improper methods were used by Vice Minister Lee during the preliminary investigation closure. The head of the investigation team is a veteran with over 20 years of experience in investigation and criminal affairs. The other ten or so members are also seasoned investigators in this field. The investigation, which seemed likely to conclude within a few days, has yet to produce any significant results. The team keeps repeating like a parrot that "forensic work on related materials is underway" and "accuracy takes precedence over speed."

The sincerity of the investigation is also in question. The police met the victim taxi driver the day after the fact-finding team was formed (January 25) to investigate the situation at that time. Investigations of Sergeant A and superiors at Seocho Police Station, including the section chief and the chief, have all been completed. However, Vice Minister Lee, the person involved in the assault, has not yet been directly investigated. The investigation team reportedly only received Lee’s mobile phone two months after the team was formed, through voluntary submission, and then examined it. This has fueled criticism that the police are watching the current administration’s interests and waiting for the case to die down quietly.

With the adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and police, the police now hold the ‘authority to conclude investigations.’ This year marks the first year of ‘responsible investigation.’ There is no disagreement that public trust must be the foundation for the police to establish themselves as an independent investigative agency with appropriate authority. If the police repeat past behaviors of watching the powers that be, the blade of reform will inevitably be directed at the police.

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