Moon starts prosecution reform

Prosecutors under probe over possible anti-graft law violation

A team of 22 inspectors will look into bribery allegations involving two of the most powerful figures that control the prosecution — a sign that President Moon Jae-in has begun to reform the institution as he promised.

The targets of the inspection, which the president ordered Wednesday, are Ahn Tae-geun, a deputy minister for criminal affairs, and Lee Young-ryeol, chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.

The two offered their resignation, Thursday, after allegations surfaced that they exchanged suspicious money envelopes over dinner on April 21, four days after the end of the Choi Soon-sil scandal investigation.

But Cheong Wa Dae will not let them get away. A senior official at the presidential office told reporters that their resignations won’t be accepted until the inspectors finish their job.

With Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam already gone, many experts see the inspection as the beginning of sweeping prosecution reform from the top.

The joint inspection team from the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office will look into why Ahn met Lee, who led the Choi scandal investigation team until he passed the baton to an independent counsel, at a restaurant in southern Seoul. Two senior ministry officials and six prosecutors from the team were also present.

At the dinner, Lee and Ahn gave envelopes containing cash to each other’s staff, which they have admitted to doing. Each envelope reportedly contained 700,000 won to 1 million won ($620-$890).

In fear of getting into trouble later, the ministry officials returned the money to Lee the next day, while the prosecutors did not.

Lee and Ahn say the money came from the ministry’s “special activity budget” of 28.7 billion won, and insist they did not violate any laws by giving and taking the money.

But many experts disagree. They say that the money Ahn gave to the prosecutors can be considered bribes, given his friendship with Woo Byung-woo, one of the key suspects in the scandal.

From July to October, when the corruption scandal involving Choi and former President Park Geun-hye was making headlines, Ahn exchanged more than a thousand phone calls with Woo, who was a senior presidential secretary at the time.

All the key suspects in the scandal, including the former president, were eventually arrested and jailed. But Woo, a former prosecutor who has wide connections within the prosecution, remains free. Many people suspect prosecutors did not try hard enough to investigate the man, who knows many of their “dirty secrets,” in order to conceal their own wrongdoings.

Special activity budgets are money that can be spent freely without reporting to higher institutions for security reasons. The National Intelligence Service received 486 billion won for its budget in 2016, followed by the Ministry of National Defense (178.3 billion won), the National Police Agency (129.8 billion won) and the justice ministry.

The inspection may lead to an age-old debate on whether such money is necessary and, if so, how much is the proper amount.

Some experts believe that the ministry officials and the prosecutors have also violated the sweeping anti-graft law, which came into force last year to ban all government officials from offering and receiving 1 million won or more for any reason whatsoever.

The prosecution has long been criticized for going easy on cases involving its own people and being “too political” in cases involving people close to powerful figures who can sway influence over its personnel matters.

Moon promised to reform the institution during his presidential campaign by removing all or part of its investigative powers and establishing an independent body that can investigate and indict high-ranking government officials.