Prosecutors Request Arrest Warrant for Former Deputy Secretary Song Bong-seop over Election Commission 'Hiring Corruption Allegations'

Former Secretary Song's Daughter Preselected as Successful Candidate... Chungbuk Election Commission Former Manager Arrest Warrant Requested

The prosecution investigating allegations of recruitment corruption at the National Election Commission has requested an arrest warrant for former NEC Deputy Secretary Song Bong-seop.

Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, Seocho-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

The Public Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Jong-hyun) announced on the 5th that it has requested arrest warrants for former Deputy Secretary Song and former Chungbuk NEC Management Director Han on charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of official duties by deception.

According to the prosecution, former Deputy Secretary Song is accused of requesting former Management Director Han, who was in charge of personnel affairs, to hire his daughter (who was then working at Boryeong City Hall in Chungnam) as a public official at the Chungbuk NEC during the career recruitment in January 2018.

In response, former Management Director Han is reported to have preselected Song's daughter as a successful candidate before the recruitment process even began and then proceeded with the recruitment process only formally.

Furthermore, former Management Director Han is also accused of designating the residential area of his high school classmate Lee's daughter as the target region for career recruitment and preselecting Lee's daughter as a successful candidate, then conducting the recruitment process only formally to hire her as a public official at the Chungbuk NEC.

The allegations of recruitment corruption at the NEC surfaced in May when it was revealed that the children of the NEC Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary were hired by the NEC. The NEC stated that its internal investigation identified 21 cases of preferential hiring involving high-ranking executives, but a subsequent on-site investigation by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission uncovered a total of 353 suspected cases of recruitment corruption, including suspicions of 58 fraudulent hires in career recruitment conducted from 2017 to May of last year.

Based on these investigation results, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission requested the prosecution to investigate those responsible for the faulty recruitment and cases requiring verification of family favoritism or illicit requests.

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