Lee Yong-gu: "I gave 10 million won because it was when I was being considered as a candidate for the Corruption Investigation Office chief"... "It's not a bribe for deleting the video"

Denial of Charges for Obstruction of Evidence

A screenshot of SBS News showing Lee Yong-gu, Deputy Minister of Justice, obtaining and reporting a black box video of an assault on a taxi driver on the 2nd.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] Lee Yong-gu, Deputy Minister of Justice, who is under investigation for assaulting a taxi driver while riding in the taxi (assault on a driver under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes), claimed on the 3rd that the 10 million won he gave to the taxi driver was merely a simple settlement payment and was not money given on the condition of deleting the black box footage.

It appears he is defending himself after the police, who are investigating him for instructing evidence destruction, also booked the victim taxi driver on charges of evidence destruction, and the day before, a video showing the assault inside the taxi was broadcasted.

In a statement distributed through his lawyer on the same day, Deputy Minister Lee said, “The video footage reported on the 2nd is indeed from the night of November 6 last year when the taxi driver was assaulted,” and added, “Although the incident occurred while I was heavily intoxicated and confused about people and situations, I fully acknowledge that there is no excuse for assaulting a person for any reason.”

He stated, “Two days after the incident, on November 8, I met with the taxi driver to apologize and make amends, and at that meeting, I sincerely apologized and transferred 10 million won as a settlement payment,” and claimed, “I thought it was a larger amount than usual for a settlement, but since I was a lawyer at the time and was being considered as a candidate for the head of the Corruption Investigation Office, I decided to give that amount.”

He further emphasized, “However, there was absolutely no fact of proposing any conditions or seeking conditional agreement during the settlement.”

Regarding the charge of instructing evidence destruction, Deputy Minister Lee apologized, saying, “First, I express my regret that the taxi driver was even booked on charges of evidence destruction.”

He claimed, “The reason I asked to delete the video was only because I was concerned that the video sent by the taxi driver via KakaoTalk might be shared or spread to third parties, and it did not mean that I wanted the original black box footage deleted at all.”

Currently, investigations into Deputy Minister Lee are being conducted simultaneously by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. The police are investigating the evidence destruction instruction case transferred from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, and the prosecution is investigating the assault on a driver charge under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, which the police had previously closed the preliminary investigation on, as well as dereliction of duty charges against police officers involved in the investigation.

The prosecution will make a final decision on whether to indict after receiving and reviewing the police case records.

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