[Choice Times=Seollae Kim, Staff Reporter]

Did the prosecution once again bow down on its own?

This came shortly after President Lee Jae-myung remarked at a Cabinet meeting, “It makes no sense to indict someone with bizarre logic only for the court to acquit them in the end. How can it be right to investigate a case that doesn’t exist and try to send someone to prison?”—effectively instructing a review of abandoning an appeal. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok also said, “It is only natural for the prosecution to give up the appeal.”

On the 2nd, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office effectively abandoned an appeal in the “West Sea civil servant shooting case,” in which all defendants were acquitted at first instance. It was a replay of the prosecution’s abandonment of appeal in the Daejang-dong case.

Prosecutors dropped appeals against former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook, who had been charged with document destruction, thereby finalizing their acquittals. They filed appeals only on some charges—such as defamation—against former Blue House National Security Office Director Suh Hoon and former Korea Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee.

The prosecution explained that it decided not to file appeals after “considering the practical benefits of an appeal.”

As a result of the prosecution’s decision not to appeal, former NIS Director Park Jie-won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook have been definitively acquitted.

Previously, on the 26th of last month, the Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 25 (Presiding Judge Ji Gwi-yeon) acquitted all defendants—including former National Security Office Director Suh Hoon, former NIS Director Park Jie-won, former Defense Minister Suh Wook, and former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee—who had been indicted on charges such as abuse of authority and obstruction of the exercise of rights.

The “West Sea civil servant shooting case” refers to the September 2020 incident in which Lee Dae-jun was killed by North Korean forces in the West Sea.

At the time, former National Security Office Director Suh Hoon was accused of instructing Joint Chiefs of Staff officials and former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim to maintain “security” in order to conceal the shooting at a meeting of related ministers the day after Lee was killed.

Suh was also charged with distributing false press releases suggesting that Lee was still being searched for by the Coast Guard while concealing the fact of his shooting, and with ordering the preparation and distribution of reports and briefing materials to fabricate a narrative of “voluntary defection to North Korea.”

Former Director Park, former Minister Suh, and former Chief of Staff Roh were also accused of siding with the “security maintenance” policy and ordering NIS and Defense Ministry officials to delete related intelligence and documents.

However, the trial court acquitted all defendants, citing “insufficient evidence.”

Despite this, prosecutors—who would normally contest such matters at the appellate level—on the final day of the appeal deadline, the 2nd, chose to exclude from appeal the alleged organized concealment of facts and document destruction by the Moon Jae-in administration’s national security line. Instead, they decided to appeal only issues related to problems in the subsequent investigation announcement.

Specifically, they chose to contest only the acquittal on the charge that announcing investigative findings suggesting a voluntary defection damaged the honor of the deceased and his bereaved family.

Former prosecutor and former party leader Han Dong-hoon criticized the move, saying, “This is a trick—appealing only 10%. It is a prosecution leadership lying flat before power.”

Han asked, “Has the prosecution ever once handled a major case this way by yielding to power?” and added that it was “an extremely unusual decision that does not follow law and principle.”

He continued, “They gave up appealing the document deletion charges, which are the easiest to secure convictions on,” warning that “this constitutes abuse of authority, and the day will come when a ‘special prosecutor on appeal abandonment’ is launched.”

Han further alleged, “Park Cheol-woo, the Seoul Central District Prosecutor who secured his post by leading the abandonment of the Daejang-dong appeal that made Kim Man-bae and his associates tycoons, overrode the investigation team’s opinion and openly went easy on lawmaker Park Jie-won, a fellow alumnus of Mokpo Muntae High School.”

He concluded, “To go easy on Park Jie-won, they threw away 90% of the case.”

#ProsecutorialControversy #WestSeaIncident #JusticeUnderScrutiny