'Park Ji-won and Seo Hoon Investigation' Central District Prosecutors' Office Requests Additional Personnel Deployment

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The investigative team at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, which is investigating the 'West Sea Public Official Killing Incident' and the 'Repatriation of North Korean Fishermen Incident,' has requested additional personnel dispatch from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

According to the legal community on the 11th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office requested last week that the Supreme Prosecutors' Office dispatch 1 to 2 prosecutors from other offices to the Public Investigation Division 1 (Chief Prosecutor Lee Hee-dong) and Public Investigation Division 3 (Chief Prosecutor Lee Jun-beom). Currently, Public Investigation Division 1 consists of 7 members, and Public Investigation Division 3 consists of 6 members.

Public Investigation Division 1 is investigating the circumstances under which the Moon Jae-in administration announced that Mr. Lee Dae-jun, a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official who was killed by North Korean soldiers in the West Sea in September 2020, was a defector to the North. They are also looking into allegations that former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won unlawfully deleted intelligence-related reports at that time.

Public Investigation Division 3 is investigating whether former National Intelligence Service Director Seo Hoon gave inappropriate instructions during the process of repatriating two North Korean sailors who killed 16 colleagues, defected, and expressed their intention to seek asylum in November 2019.

Accordingly, the legal community analyzes that the prosecution seems to have decided to first expand the size of its own investigative teams rather than forming a special investigation team.

Meanwhile, the Central District Prosecutors' Office plans to request additional personnel for other divisions if necessary, besides the two divisions. Under the 4th Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Central District Prosecutors' Office, which includes the Anti-Corruption Investigation Divisions 1, 2, and 3, the number of prosecutors has decreased by nearly 10 due to this personnel change.

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