아시아 12/06/14 Prosecutors criticized for surveillance probe - Anger after senior govt officials escape charges after lengthy probe

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Prosecutors criticized for surveillance probe

Anger after senior govt officials escape charges after lengthy probe

Stephen Hong, Seoul
Korea
June 14, 2012

The Seoul Central High Prosecutors' Office

The government and judicial system came under renewed criticism yesterday after prosecutors indicted just five officials following a lengthy investigation into illegal surveillance as higher ranking members of government escaped charges.

Park Young-joon, the former vice-knowledge economy minister and once a top confidant of President Lee Myung-bak, was the most senior official to be indicted following a reinvestigation that started in March.

Lee Young-ho, former presidential secretary for employment, was also charged with illegal surveillance of government critics yesterday along with three other new defendants. Prosecutors had been investigating some 500 people.

Prosecutors said they were allegedly involved in monitoring businessmen and members of the public that have been critical of Lee’s government over the past four years, including Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The Supreme Court expressed its “shock and surprise” that former chief justice Lee Yong-hoon was also illegally monitored by the government.

The Buddhist Jogye order has claimed that 11 of its monks were targeted by illegal surveillance after the government monitored their bank accounts. Spokesman Kim Young-gu said they would set up a task force to look into the matter.

The surveillance investigations also looked into bribes supposedly paid to cover up the affair, which many in South Korea have likened to the infamous Watergate scandal that bought down former president Richard Nixon in the United States.

Critics have argued that the scandal must have reached the highest levels of government, including the president himself, given the profile of those that have been indicted and the widespread nature of the surveillance that supposedly took place.

“Behind the surveillance must be President Lee Myung-bak,” the main opposition Democratic United Party said yesterday, calling for an independent investigation.

The ruling Saenuri Party appeared to agree a more thorough investigation was required, saying “it would be possible to solve the nation’s suspicion of the president’s involvement by appointing independent special prosecutors.”

Religious leaders also strongly criticized the investigation.

Father Hugo Park Jung-woo, secretary of the bishops’ Committee for Justice and Peace, said today it was “very disappointing,” claiming that prosecutors “have protected the president, who committed a crime.”

Reverend Lee Hae-hak, president of the Justice and Peace Committee of the National Council of Churches in Korea, warned prosecutors they themselves would one day be held accountable.

“The prosecutors have used their sword to defend this corrupt power,” he said.

The surveillance scandal dates back to 2010 when businessman Kim Jong-ik revealed that he was subject to illegal surveillance by the government in 2008.

The original prosecutors’ investigation led to the removal of several lower-ranking officials.

But a further investigation was reopened in March when Jang Jin-su, a former official at the Prime Minister’s Office, confessed to destroying evidence of illegal surveillance under orders from the Presidential Office.