Democratic Party's Kim Jong-min: "Prosecutor's Office Yoon Seok-yeol Investigation Involves 'Weak' Cases... Additional Investigations Needed on Spouse Sponsorship"

Kim Jong-min, Supreme Council Member of the Democratic Party of Korea, is attending the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 19th and delivering an opening remark. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] Kim Jong-min, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out that the investigation by the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Unit (HCIC) into former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol involves "relatively minor or less significant matters." There is speculation that additional investigations will be conducted into cases considered more important, such as his wife's sponsorship-related issues and the 'Channel A incident.'

On the 11th, Kim appeared on MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus' and said, "There are several important suspicions related to former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol. However, the Optimus-related case and the (former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook-related) perjury intimidation case are relatively minor or less significant compared to other cases."

He added, "Yoon Seok-yeol's wife suddenly received an increased amount of sponsorship when Yoon was the head of the Central District Prosecutors' Office. The companies that provided the sponsorship were under investigation by Yoon's Central District Prosecutors' Office. Doesn't that raise suspicions of bribery?"

He continued, "This is not a mandatory investigation, but if the HCIC has the will to investigate, they should do so. However, the prosecution has made no progress for over a year. I don't know what they are doing internally, but compared to the investigation of former Minister Cho Kuk, this is like a royal investigation," he claimed.

Kim also said, "Regarding former Chief Prosecutor Han Dong-hoon and the Channel A incident, the serious issue is that Han Dong-hoon's mobile phone cannot be forensically examined. If it is disclosed, it must be confirmed that there were intensive calls between Han Dong-hoon and former Prosecutor General Yoon related to this case. It was not just a few calls; there were 110 calls over 8 days and 2,700 calls over 2 months."

He argued, "This is enough to arouse suspicion and was also problematic in the inspection results. These matters should be subject to investigation requests."

Regarding the HCIC's decision, he said, "If they deliberately chose these minor cases first because they are burdensome, that could backfire significantly on the HCIC. I don't think this is very likely. It is also possible that they followed general administrative guidelines."

"There may be two cases that started investigation first due to internal administrative processes, and if so, the remaining more serious or publicly suspicious cases must also be investigated additionally," he said.

Kim also stated, "Trying to cover up well-known suspicions just because someone is running for president is truly a privilege and unfairness. The People Power Party seems to be playing the role of oppressing a presidential candidate because these important suspicions related to former Prosecutor General Yoon are becoming a matter of public interest. But in my view, that is unreasonable."

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