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The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul on Oct. 18. (Yonhap News)

A conflict between Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae and Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl has been heating up once again after the release of a letter written by former Star Mobility Chairperson Kim Bong-hyun, a key figure in the recent Lime Asset scandal. Some observers are predicting the clash could end up turning into a “chicken race” between the two.

In a position statement on Oct. 18, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) took aim at Yoon with a message hinting that it might undertake a separate investigation from the one by inspectors. In Kim Bong-hyun’s self-penned “overview of the situation” released on Oct. 16, an attorney formerly with the prosecutors is quoted as saying, “A heavy blow will be needed to lend support to Yoon Seok-youl. A Blue House administration officer won’t be enough; they will need to nab someone along the lines of a Blue House senior secretary. When it comes to saving you, someone like [lawmaker] Ki Dong-min would be OK, but you’ll really need to get someone like [former Blue House Senior Secretary for Political Affairs] Kang [Ki-jung].”

This appears to have been the basis for the MOJ’s reference in its position statement to being “unable to rule out a possible connection, including allegations that he, unlike ruling party figures, did not issue directions for a thorough investigation [of improprieties involving opposition party politicians].” The statement points out that Yoon issued directions only for investigations into ruling party figures, despite also receiving reports of statements implicating opposition party politicians.

The MOJ suspects that Seoul Nambu District Prosecutors’ Office information about opposition politicians may have been reported separately to Yoon without going through the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office (SPO) anti-corruption division. Song Sam-hyeon, who headed Seoul Nambu District Prosecutors’ Office at the time, insisted that “information about opposition party politicians was also included in in-person reports to the prosecutor general, and that the prosecutor general always ordered a thorough investigation.”

The SPO similarly disputed the claims, maintaining that Yoon “ordered a thorough investigation after receiving reports on allegations involving opposition party politicians.” The claim is that he issued his orders immediately upon receiving a report from the investigation team. The SPO vehemently protested the claims in the MOJ’s statement -- going so far as to call it a “slander against the prosecutor general.”

Choo and Yoon have clashed almost constantly since the former was named the justice minister in January. The biggest collision has concerned allegations of collusion between the prosecutors and media, which have implicated Han Dong-hoon, an Institute of Justice research fellow who is also a close associate of Yoon’s. After Yoon pushed for a specialist investigation advisory panel review of the case, Choo responded on July 2 by invoking her authority to direct the investigation and exclude Yoon from the process. The conflict was put to bed when the SPO stated that the invocation of investigative authority was a “formal gesture” and that Yoon’s “authority had already been given up.”

But observers are worrying that the current situation may be more serious. An attorney and former chief prosecutor said, “The Prosecutor General released a public statement basically accusing Minister Choo of ‘slandering’ him, which is a level of resistance we haven’t seen even in the past 10 months of butting heads.”

“If what Kim Bong-hyun says in his letter is true, that will be a devastating blow for the prosecutors. But if the letter turns out to be false, then that will be a devastating blow for the MOJ, which alluded to investigating the prosecutor general himself in a situation where they hadn’t even properly established the facts,” the attorney predicted.

By Lim Jae-woo, staff reporter

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