Jin-wook Kim: "Considering Summoning Yoon Seok-yeol... Not Surveillance Through Communication Inquiry" (Comprehensive)

Ruling and Opposition Clash in Legislation Committee... Director Kim "Police and Prosecutors Also Conduct Communication Inquiries, So Why Are We the Only Ones Being Surveilled?"

Kim Jin-wook, Chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, attended the plenary meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee held at the National Assembly on the 30th and responded to questions from lawmakers. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] Kim Jin-wook, head of the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Office (HCIO), stated that he is considering summoning Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party, for investigation regarding allegations of drafting documents for judicial surveillance. Candidate Yoon is currently registered as a suspect along with prosecutor Son Joon-sung, the human rights protection officer at Daegu High Prosecutors' Office, in connection with the judicial surveillance documents.

On the 30th, Kim appeared before the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee and expressed his stance on recent controversies, including inquiries into communication data access and allegations of drafting judicial surveillance documents. Regarding candidate Yoon, in response to a question from Kim Yong-min, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, asking "When will candidate Yoon be summoned?" Kim said, "There is a procedure and order for investigation," adding, "It is under review." When asked why candidate Yoon has not yet been summoned, he explained, "The key suspect is hospitalized for a long period."

When further questioned about the plan to summon candidate Yoon, Kim said, "If there is a necessity and the stage is appropriate, it will proceed," and added, "It is not done in every case." However, Kim emphasized the importance of the matter by stating, "The fact that the court recognized the facts through evidence is generally considered important evidence."

The controversy over the HCIO's illegal communication surveillance continued. When Kwon Seong-dong, a member of the People Power Party, pointed out, "It is legitimate law enforcement to access only the minimum necessary within the scope of related persons. It is excessive, overreaching, and abuse of power," Kim responded, "That is an excessive remark," and retorted, "The prosecution and police do it a lot too, so why is only the HCIO accused of surveillance?"

In particular, Kim emphasized regarding the communication data access of candidate Yoon and his wife Kim Geon-hee, "We accessed candidate Yoon's data three times, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office did four times, and for the spouse, we did once and the prosecution five times," and asked, "Why is only us accused of surveillance?" He continued, "According to last week's announcement by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the prosecution accessed 597,000 cases, the police 1,877,000 cases, but we only accessed 135 cases," adding, "Saying we conducted communication surveillance is an overstatement."

Yoon Han-hong, a member of the People Power Party, also pressed, "The prosecution handled 3.3 million cases and processed 2.28 million cases, and the HCIO has only a few ongoing investigations but accessed over 280 cases. Why did you downplay this? Are you deceiving the public?" In response, Kim said, "The 135 cases are statistics for the first half of the year; the second half will be much higher." However, when asked about the second half statistics, he said, "I do not know exactly." Regarding prosecution statistics, Kim stated, "They are from the second half of 2019 until last year."

As of this day, the HCIO's communication data access includes hundreds of people, including about 80 politicians, including 78 members of the People Power Party, about 140 journalists including foreign correspondents, and representatives of civic groups. Candidate Yoon and his wife Kim are also included.

Considering that at the end of April, the HCIO registered the abuse of authority case against Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, as its first case and started the first investigation, and that the number of ongoing investigations is not large, the communication data access has been quite extensive within just eight months. Additionally, the HCIO obtained communication warrants to check the communication data of members participating in the People Power Party's KakaoTalk group chat, and reportedly checked the communication records of a TV Chosun reporter who reported on the ‘Emperor Escort’ case involving Prosecutor General Lee Sung-yoon, including the reporter's family communication data. On this day, Asahi Shimbun publicly demanded an explanation, stating that the HCIO accessed communication data of a Korean reporter belonging to its Seoul bureau.

However, Kim said, "I think there has never been a precedent where the head of an agency appeared (before the National Assembly) to answer because communication data access became an issue during an investigation," and "We will reflect on whether our scope was too broad. Although there is no illegality, we will minimize the scope in future investigations."

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