Han Dong-hoon denies "targeted investigation allegations" as "completely untrue"

Han Dong-hoon, Chief Prosecutor, appeared as a witness at the Seoul Central District Court last May <이미지출처:연합뉴스>

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] Han Dong-hoon, Deputy Director of the Legal Research and Training Institute, stated that the prosecution’s alleged ‘targeted investigation’ of Lee Jae-myung, the former Democratic Party presidential candidate, is "completely untrue."

In a statement on the 8th, Deputy Director Han said, "There was no investigation conducted by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office into candidate Lee in relation to Lee, a member of the international mafia gang from Seongnam, Mr. Lee." He added, "At that time, there was no investigative lead such as witness testimony linking candidate Lee to the gang. If such leads had existed, we would have certainly conducted a strict investigation without exception." He also said, "It is a prosecutor’s natural duty to investigate gangs and their backers, and I cannot agree with the distortion and misrepresentation that this was wrong."

KBS reported in September that in 2017, the Violent Crimes Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office pressured Mr. Lee, who was active in Seongnam, to testify about misconduct by Lee Jae-myung, then mayor of Seongnam. Subsequently, some within the ruling party raised suspicions that Yoon Seok-youl, the People Power Party presidential candidate and then head of the prosecutors’ office, and Deputy Director Han, who led the Violent Crimes Division as the 3rd Deputy Prosecutor General, conducted a targeted investigation against candidate Lee.

Mr. Lee, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2019, is currently on trial for additional charges. He was granted bail last month and is now out on bail. On the same day, he appeared on TBS Radio’s ‘Kim Eo-jun’s News Factory’ and referred to Park Cheol-min, who raised the gang involvement allegations against candidate Lee, claiming, "Mr. Park’s side offered 1 billion KRW to provide information about candidate Lee’s misconduct."

Meanwhile, the civic group Judicial Justice Citizens’ Action (Sasehaeng) filed a complaint with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) on the same day, accusing candidate Yoon, Deputy Director Han, and two other current and former prosecutors of abuse of authority and coercion.

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