'Taxi Driver Assault' Lee Yong-gu Vice Minister to Be Summoned Soon for Prosecution Investigation

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] It has been reported that the prosecution has issued a summons to Lee Yong-gu, the Deputy Minister of Justice, who is accused of assaulting a taxi driver. Since the incident occurred six months ago and the investigation began four months ago, the possibility of prosecution is considerable as the deputy minister is being called in for questioning.

According to the legal community on the 10th, the Criminal Division 5 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Dong-eon) recently notified Deputy Minister Lee of the summons for questioning and is coordinating the schedule.

Initially, the prosecution had scheduled Deputy Minister Lee's summons for last weekend. However, due to his schedule and other reasons, the appearance was postponed, and both parties are now coordinating for him to appear next week.

Deputy Minister Lee is accused of assaulting a taxi driver near his residence in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the night of November 6 last year, and demanding the deletion of the taxi's black box footage. At the time, he was intoxicated. However, the responding police did not book him and dismissed the case without charges.

The prosecution investigated allegations including the assault on his driver, destruction of evidence by deleting the taxi black box footage, and suspicions of the police conducting a cover-up investigation. In particular, in January, they accelerated the investigation by conducting a search of the Seocho Police Station in Seoul. They secured incident reception records and internal report documents. Based on these, they reviewed the investigation records from the time of the incident. The investigation also included whether there was involvement from Deputy Minister Lee or higher-ranking police officials regarding the police officer who reviewed the footage but covered up the incident.

In the legal community, it is expected that the investigation team will make a final decision on prosecution after directly questioning Deputy Minister Lee. The assault charge, supported by evidence such as the black box footage capturing the assault, has a high likelihood of prosecution. However, the situation differs regarding the police's 'leniency suspicion,' which is under internal investigation by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Although the police's internal investigation closure has issues, it is expected that they will determine that Deputy Minister Lee did not exert influence.

Even if prosecution occurs on some charges, the timing of the indictment is also a matter of interest. Considering that Kim Oh-soo, the nominee for Prosecutor General, is currently preparing for the confirmation hearing, there is growing weight to the possibility that Acting Prosecutor General Cho Nam-gwan (Deputy Prosecutor General of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office) will expedite the case to ease the burden on the next Prosecutor General and conclude it as quickly as possible.

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