The prosecution and police are on a collision course over the right to investigate a senior prosecutor accused of taking bribes from a con artist and a business group.
An ad hoc team at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Sunday raided the homes and offices of the official, Eugene Group and others involved.
“Five groups of investigators including forensic experts began the search at 10 a.m.,” Kim Su-chang, chief of the special investigation team, told reporters.
The team, consisting of 10 prosecutors and 15 detectives, was named by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Friday just after police announced that they had been digging into the alleged bribery.
The police sharply criticized the prosecution for trying to intercept the case for fear that a police probe would tarnish its reputation.
Police chief Kim Ki-yong said Sunday police would continue with the probe.
“The prosecution’s naming of the special investigation team is an infringement of the police’s right to investigation guaranteed by the Criminal Procedure Code,” the commissioner general of the National Police Agency said.
He said the double investigation could lead to an abuse of human rights.
On Saturday, an NPA unit sent a summons to the prosecutor, identified only by his surname Kim, to appear for questioning by Friday. They said two or three other prosecutors are also involved in the case.
The incident came amid tension over investigation rights between the two agencies.
A controversial ordinance came into force in January, empowering prosecutors to supervise the police’s preliminary investigations.
Police protest that the new code damages their independence.
Police’s Intelligence Investigative Unit has been probing Kim on suspicion of taking 200 million won ($184,000) around 2008 from the side of Cho Hee-pal, the nation’s most wanted con artist, who purportedly died last year while hiding out in China.
Kim, about a year after the alleged bribery, moved to a Daegu branch of the prosecution, which handled the con man’s case. He now works at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul.
Kim is also accused of receiving 600 million won from an official of Eugene Group through a bank account opened under a third-party name.
The business group, at the time of the transaction, was going through legal trouble regarding its takeover that year of Hi-mart, the country’s largest electronic appliance retailer.
By Kim Young-won (
wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
