Prosecutor Lee Gyu-won Resigns Over 'Yoon Joong-chun False Interview Report' Related to President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol

On October 15 last year, Lee Gyu-won, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office, who was indicted on charges of involvement in the illegal travel ban of former Deputy Minister of Justice Kim Hak-ui, is attending a trial at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] Lee Gyu-won, deputy chief prosecutor of Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office (age 45, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 36), who is on trial for charges including applying for a travel ban on former Deputy Minister of Justice Kim Hak-ui using a fake case number and falsifying the interview report of construction businessman Yoon Joong-chun, a key figure in the 'villa sexual bribery allegations,' announced his resignation on the 10th.

In 2018, while dispatched to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's Past Affairs Investigation Team, Lee is accused of falsely recording in the interview report on Yoon?related to the sexual bribery allegations against former Deputy Minister Kim?that 'then Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol seemed to have visited the villa in Wonju,' a statement Yoon never made. Following the presidential election held the day before, where former Prosecutor General Yoon was elected as the next president, Lee apparently judged that it would be difficult to maintain his current position.

Lee submitted his resignation to the Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office, his affiliated prosecution office, on the same day.

In a post on Facebook that evening, Lee wrote, "After 14 years with the prosecution, it seems the time has come to leave, so I submitted my resignation today due to personal reasons." He reflected, "I have handled 10,775 cases involving 14,879 people across Cheongju, Nonsan, Bucheon, Seoul Western, Seoul Central, Daejeon, and Chuncheon, and only the case in which I am indicted, the 'Kim Hak-ui travel ban case,' remains unresolved."

He added, "Prosecutorial power is, before anything else, a heavy responsibility to the people as it is the authority of the organization's members. The prosecution should rightfully be the light and salt of our society, an important organization, so I hope it will be reborn as a place worthy of its mission to fulfill its original role on the side of justice and the weak."

Although Lee has expressed his intention to resign, he is currently on trial for criminal charges, and disciplinary procedures are underway, making it difficult for his resignation to be accepted immediately. The Supreme Prosecutors' Office Inspection Committee recently resolved to request the Ministry of Justice to impose a heavy disciplinary action of six months' suspension on him.

Under the National Public Service Act, a public official cannot be allowed to retire if they are indicted for misconduct or if a disciplinary committee has requested a heavy disciplinary action.

Lee was indicted in December last year on charges of falsifying reports related to President-elect Yoon during the investigation of construction businessman Yoon while serving in the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Past Affairs Investigation Team from 2018 to 2019, and leaking them to the media.

Earlier, in April last year, he was also indicted for entering the case number of a sexual assault case in which former Deputy Minister Kim was already cleared in 2013 at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office into an emergency travel ban request form, and then submitting a request for approval of the emergency travel ban to the Ministry of Justice with a fake investigation number. Currently, the two cases have been consolidated and are being tried in court.

Minister of Justice Park Beom-gye promoted Lee to deputy chief prosecutor and allowed him to maintain his dispatch position at the Fair Trade Commission, even while he was on trial for the 'Kim Hak-ui illegal travel ban' case, during personnel appointments in August 2021 when Lee was a rank-and-file prosecutor at the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office dispatched to the Fair Trade Commission.

Additionally, in the personnel appointments of January last year, he was assigned as deputy chief prosecutor of Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office.

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