Senior prosecutor offers to quit over botched manhunt of Sewol owner

A senior prosecutor in charge of investigating April's ferry sinking offered to resign Thursday, holding himself accountable for failing to catch the fugitive shipping tycoon allegedly responsible for one of the country's worst peacetime disasters.   

Choi Jae-kyung, 51, chief of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office probing the case, offered his resignation to the top prosecution office, prosecutors said.

The move comes after the badly decomposed body of Yoo Byung-eun, a 73-year-old billionaire who owned Sewol operator Chonghaejin Marine Co., was found in remote mountains in southern part of the country last month.

The prosecution has come under fire for failing to locate Yoo's whereabouts for nearly two months and the delay in identifying the body, even after expending massive financial and personnel resources in the investigation.

On Wednesday, the prosecution office also acknowledged that Yoo was hiding inside a small closet of his vacation home when police and prosecutors stormed the house on May 25, The vacation home is located only about 2.5 kilometers away from where Yoo's body was found.

Choi, a veteran prosecutor with nearly 30 years of experience in the law enforcement agency, took the helm of the Incheon office in December 2013. (Yonhap)