Category: crime & punishment

The last person remaining that can delay the Korean left’s attempt to completely take over prosecuting powers is Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl. The Moon administration is trying to rehabilitate the image of former corrupt Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook by appointing a judge with deep ties to to disgraced former Justice Minister Cho Kuk to look into it. ROK Heads may remember that Cho is good friends with Moon, so it is likely anyone with ties to him will provide investigation results favorable to Han Myeong-sook. Yoon has been delaying the investigation much to the ire of the Korean left:

President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged his justice minister and the prosecutor general to stop fighting each other and cooperate to complete reform of the prosecution.    

“Last week, the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution each launched task-force teams to protect human rights during criminal procedures,” Moon said during his opening remarks at a Blue House policy meeting that included both top officials. “Since the two powerful organs willingly started the initiatives, they must cooperate with each other and prepare a bold reform measure to make the people feel actual changes.”    

Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl has been facing growing pressures from the ruling party to step down for his constant discord with Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae.

Moon stressed the importance of cooperation as the friction between Yoon and Choo reached a new peak last week amid disagreements over an ongoing investigation into the prosecutors’ handling of a 2010 corruption probe into former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook.    

On May 29, Yoon reassigned the case to the human rights monitoring office of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. The investigation is reviewing prosecutors’ suspected coercion of a witness to testify against Han, and was originally assigned to the more independent and powerful Inspection Headquarters of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.    

Led by Han Dong-soo, a former judge appointed by Choo’s predecessor Cho Kuk, the Inspection Headquarters has the power to request warrants, conduct raids and detain suspects, unlike the human rights monitoring office. Han Dong-soo has also argued that his team should be in charge of the internal probe.    

During a National Assembly hearing last week, Choo said Yoon’s assignment was a mistake. She then ordered the Inspection Headquarters to directly question key witnesses instead of waiting for the human rights office’s findings.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read much more at the link, but the Korean left wants Yoon to resign, but by law his term runs until July 2021.

The fraud accusations against left wing parliament member Yoon Mee-hyang, who used to run the Comfort Women charity, is only getting worse:

Then came the suicide of a Korean Council employee responsible for the operation of its shelter for the survivors.

The director of the shelter, known only by her surname Sohn, was found dead, pushing investigators to expand the scope of its probe.

Then came another layer of unexpected information. 

A granddaughter of Gil Won-ok, another survivor who had stayed at the shelter until recently, made a new accusation against Sohn, and Yoon, of money laundering. 

“The shelter’s director laundered money by taking an enormous amount of money from Grandma’s account and sending it to another account. I am sure people around her knew what she was doing,” the granddaughter wrote on the internet in reply to a news article on the director’s death. 

The prosecution summoned Gil’s son who stood partly by his daughter’s accusation. 

In a previous interview with a local news outlet, the son who Gil adopted demanded the shelter explain a big chunk of money withdrawn from her account three times ― in amounts of 4 million, 5 million and 20 million. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but with Sohn dead the only person that can answer what happened with the money is Yoon Mee-hyang. However, since Yoon is now a member of parliament she can ignore any summons from the prosecution for questioning. It appears she will be able to get away with all this with no outrage from the Korean left.

Here is the latest on the comfort woman fraud case involving left wing national assembly member Yoon Mee-hyang:

During the Friday press conference, Yoon read from a prepared statement before taking questions from the press, and rejected almost all accusations leveled against her. She also made it clear that she has no intention of giving up her seat. Yoon said she could not discuss all the “small details” because “a questioning by the prosecution is imminent,” referring to an ongoing criminal probe into the Korean Council.    

But while denying any misappropriation of funds, Yoon apologized for using her personal bank account to collect public donations, saying she had been “naïve to think it is okay as long as there was no problem about financial [transparency].”   

She said that after utilizing the donations, she transferred leftover funds to the Korean Council account, and added, “I have never used donations collected in my account for personal use.”  

Yoon said she has raised a total of 280 million won ($227,000) that was deposited into her personal bank account. She said she spent 230 million won of the total on projects related to comfort women victims that were outside the purview of the Korean Council, with the remainder used by the Korean Council. She added that she plans to disclose all of the details to the prosecution. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read much more at the link, but this may just be the tip of the iceberg involving this fraud. Yoon’s husband is noted convicted North Korean spy and fraudster himself.

I am actually not surprised by any of this. These elderly women have long been exploited for political purposes, so it is no surprise that they were also exploited for financial purposes as well:

Lee Yong-soo, who was forced to serve as a sex slave for Japanese soldiers during World War II, on Tuesday called on prosecutors to investigate the head of a charity that has been looking after her. The 92-year-old woman sobbed as she made her accusations. Lee came to prominence when she testified before American lawmakers about the brutal treatment she endured and played a pivotal role in getting the U.S. Congress to adopt a resolution seeking an apology from Japan. She is virtually the symbol of efforts over the past three decades to get the Japanese government to take full responsibility for forcing women into sexual slavery. But on Tuesday she told reporters, “I did somersaults while they took the money.” Lee added that the head of the charity that supported her, called the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, “shed crocodile tears” at the grave of another former sex slave who died in 2019. Lee gave other accounts of former sex slaves being used by the charity for financial gain.

The activist group is facing snowballing allegations of embezzling donations. Up to W3.7 billion in donations and state grants remains unaccounted for (US$1=W1,233). Yoon Mee-hyang, the head of the charity, took donations on 11 different occasions when a former sex slave died or traveled overseas. They were transferred directly into Yoon’s personal bank account and is now thought to amount to tens of millions of dollars. There are other accounts that the charity spent far less money than it received, collected donations without specifying a clear purpose for their use, and in some years gave not a single penny to the victims.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the article doesn’t mention this, but this fraud case also has ties back to a convicted spy for North Korea. The comfort women have been long used as a wedge issue between South Korea and Japan and now we know there was a convicted North Korean spy involved in running the organization that supported them.

Unsurprisingly the Moon administration has not commented on this and the head of the ruling party said this was not a serious issue.

Here is a name I haven’t heard from in a while that the Korean left is trying to rehabilitate, Han Myeong-sook:

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) is methodically moving to reinvent the political life of former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, 76, who was sentenced to jail for two years for receiving money from the former CEO of a construction company in 2007 in return for favors. If the DP really attempts to rehabilitate such a convict, that’s a grave challenge to respect for the rule of law. Han, who served as prime minister in the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2003-2008), was an iconic figure representing the liberal camp.    
   
She was indicted, convicted and served a jail term after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling against her. She was indicted without detention in July 2010 on charges of taking 900 million won ($731,400) from Han Man-ho, the CEO, who died after serving a prison term in 2018.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but there was far more evidence of corruption by Han Myeong-sook than by former President Park Geun-hye and she is likely going to spend the rest of her life in jail unless another conservative gets elected President.

Democratic Party advocates are claiming that Han is the “victim of the prosecution’s coercive investigation and the court’s abuse of power.” With the new reform bill the Democratic Party passed earlier in the year, its new investigation agency could be used to pressure judges to relook Han’s case. One of the criticism about the so called reforms was that the new investigation agency could be used to protect ruling party officials and attack political rivals.

It figures this guy would get no jail time after being convicted of corruption:

Busan’s former vice mayor for economic affairs Yoo Jae-soo was convicted of taking bribes but will avoid jail time.  
   
The Seoul Eastern District Court convicted Yoo of taking bribes from four executives of financial companies when he worked at the Financial Services Commission (FSC) from 2010 to 2018.   
   
The court handed down an 18-month suspended jail sentence and a 90 million won fine ($73,000). The court also ordered Yoo to pay the 42.21 million won he took in bribes. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but what is significant about this case is not so much the corruption, but that the former Moon administration Justice Minister Cho Kuk is being tried for abuse of power in 2017 when as then Blue House Senior Civil Affairs Secretary tried to shut down an investigation into Yoo’s suspected corruption.

This soldier’s commander must have gave himself a facepalm after getting the phone call about this:

Two people who live and work at Kadena Air Base are suspected of making off with nearly $65,000 in the armed robbery of a currency exchange shop on Okinawa.

The business, which isn’t far from Camp Foster’s front gate, was robbed by two mask-wearing perpetrators about 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to an Okinawa Police spokesman who spoke on a customary condition of anonymity.

One or both of the suspects went behind the shop’s counter while brandishing a knife-like object, threatened an employee and demanded money, the spokesman said. They ran out with $64,700 in Japanese and U.S. currency. No one was injured.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.