Supreme Court First Recognizes 'Prosecutor's Abuse of Indictment Rights'... Final Dismissal of Yoo Woo-sung's 'North Korea Remittance' Indictment

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The Supreme Court has ruled to dismiss the prosecution in the case where Yoo Woo-sung, a victim of the 'Seoul City Public Official Spy Fabrication Case,' was retried on charges including illegal remittance to North Korea, judging it as "prosecutorial abuse of prosecution rights."

The Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Noh Tae-ak) confirmed the lower court's ruling on the 14th, which sentenced Yoo to a fine of 7 million won in the appeal trial on charges including obstruction of official duties by deception.

The Supreme Court agreed with the second trial court's view that the prosecution's charges against Yoo for illegally conducting remittance business to North Korea (violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act) constituted prosecutorial abuse of prosecution rights and dismissed the charges. Only the charge of obstruction of official duties by deception was upheld.

This ruling marks the first time the Supreme Court has recognized prosecutorial abuse of prosecution rights and confirmed a lower court's dismissal of charges on that basis.

Yoo was prosecuted for running an illegal remittance business from June 2005 to October 2009, helping North Korean defectors in South Korea send money to North Korea and collecting fees. He was also accused of hiding his Chinese-Korean status and being hired as a contract public official by Seoul City in June 2011 after being designated as a protected North Korean defector.

The prosecution had already investigated Yoo's remittance case in 2010 and issued a non-prosecution disposition, but in 2014, when it became known that the prosecution had fabricated evidence and violated human rights during the spy fabrication case, the prosecution retaliated by indicting Yoo.

The first trial court found all of Yoo's charges guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 10 million won. In contrast, the second trial court pointed out the prosecution's abuse of prosecution rights in bringing the case to trial again, dismissed the charges, and only recognized the charge of obstruction of official duties by deception as guilty, sentencing Yoo to a fine of 7 million won.

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