Court that convicted ex-Justice Minister Park Sung-jae found he directed deployment of prosecutors to martial law joint investigation unit

Former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung [Yonhap]
Former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung [Yonhap]

By Choi Eui-jong, The Herald Business

The second comprehensive special prosecutor's team — led by Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young and tasked with investigating allegations left unresolved after three earlier special probes into insurrection, first lady Kim Keon Hee and the Marine Corps corporal case — summoned former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung on Wednesday as a suspect on charges of participating in key duties related to insurrection.

Shim arrived at the special prosecutor's office in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, at around 9:38 a.m. Wednesday. He declined to answer reporters' questions — including whether he had ordered the dispatch of prosecutors to the martial law command's joint investigation unit, what his response was to a court finding that prosecutors had been involved in the insurrection, what instructions he had received from then-Justice Minister Park Sung-jae on the day martial law was declared, and why he had not filed an immediate appeal — and walked directly into the building.

According to the special prosecutor's team, Shim is suspected of reviewing the deployment of prosecutors to the martial law joint investigation unit at the direction of then-Justice Minister Park following the declaration of emergency martial law on Dec. 3, 2024. Park called Shim three times between the day martial law was declared and the following day, according to the team.

Earlier, Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 33, presided over by Judge Lee Jin-gwan, sentenced Park to 25 years in prison on Sunday on charges of participating in key duties related to insurrection. The court found that after the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration, Park had told Shim that prosecutors and other personnel should be dispatched to the martial law command's joint investigation unit.

The court also found that during a senior staff meeting, Park directed the Justice Ministry's prosecutor affairs chief, the criminal planning division chief and the public criminal affairs division chief to review the deployment of prosecutors to the joint investigation unit. He also ordered them to be ready to respond promptly if the martial law command requested such a deployment.

The special prosecutor's team also applied charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of rights in connection with allegations that Shim suppressed investigations into cases involving first lady Kim Keon Hee. The team is examining whether Choi Jae-hun, former head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office anti-corruption investigation unit 2; Cho Sang-won, former fourth deputy chief of the same office; and Lee Chang-su, former chief of the office — all part of the investigation command chain at the time — dropped the charges against Kim at Shim's direction.

The special prosecutor's team searched the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul, in April, securing materials related to Shim. Last month, it also executed a search and seizure warrant on the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's ePros server at the National Information Resources Service's Gwangju center.

Later Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., the team was also set to question Shin Yong-hae, former head of the Justice Ministry's corrections bureau, as a suspect on insurrection-related charges over his alleged involvement in the martial law declaration. According to the special prosecutor's team, Shin is suspected of trying to secure space to detain those who violated the martial law proclamation, acting on orders from Park.

In sentencing Park to 25 years in prison, Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 33 found that Shin had called the warden of Seoul Detention Center to check on current inmate capacity and had directed a secretary in the corrections bureau's security policy division to determine how many additional inmates could be accommodated at detention centers and prisons in the greater Seoul area.


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