Official phone of prosecution spokespersons seized as part of probe into Yoon

Nov 08, 2021, 09:11 am

AsiaToday reporter Heo Kyung-joon

The inspection department of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office (SPPO) has seized a mobile phone that SPPO spokespersons had used, as part of an investigation into cases allegedly involving opposition presidential nominee Yoon Seok-youl.

According to inside an outside the legal circle on Sunday, the SPPO arbitrarily seized the official mobile phone of the spokespersons under the pretext of inspection and conducted forensics against the rules, sparking criticism the SPPO is trying to spy on the press.

According to the legal circle, the inspection department confiscated the official phone of the SPPO spokespersons on Oct. 29. It has been confirmed that an official court warrant was not issued to seize the device. The phone had been used by current SPPO spokesperson Suh In-sun and her two predecessors, Kwon Soon-jeong and Lee Chang-soo.

The problem is that the inspection team conducted forensic on the seized phone without asking the former SPPO spokespersons.

Typically, forensic observation is conducted twice, once when imaging process is carried out, and when only relevant files are extracted from the imaged file. In particular, when extracting files, users can raise an objection while observing so that data unrelated to the case cannot be extracted. But as this process was omitted, the right of forensic observation was not guaranteed.

It was found that the inspection department stressed there was no problem in the procedure while receiving the mobile phone. During the voluntary submission process, SPPO spokesperson Suh asked Kim Deok-gon, the chief of the 3rd Inspection Department, to ask the former SPPO spokespersons, who were users of the phone, about their intention to observe the forensics. But Kim reportedly told Suh that the inspection department completed the legal review and would take care of the procedure.

It was confirmed that the inspection department refused the forensics observation by the former spokespersons, saying that the office worker of the Spokespersons’ Office could observe instead. However, the office worker refused to observe the forensic because he was not an actual user of the mobile phone, and the inspection department conducted the forensics without user observation to secure data.

“The current fact-finding is not part of the investigation, but we obtained the mobile phone arbitrarily in accordance with the procedure stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Act in order to be cautious,” the inspection department said. “We could give the custodian a chance to observe and notify when information related to the fact-fining is found, but there was no room for post-notification as no information was restored from the phone that had been initialized three times.”

However, many prosecutors say such an explanation is ‘absurd’. It is taking issue with the procedural illegality, but the inspection department is erroneously explaining that it is not a problem because there is no clear result.

In this situation, there is also a suspicion that the mobile phone was confiscated by the SPPO’s Inspection Department through under-the-table consultation with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), which has been looking into the political meddling scandal involving Yoon.

The CIO conducted a search and seizure on the SPPO on Nov. 5. Many suspect that the SPPO being aware that it is practically difficult to seek official court warrants to seize the device, the CIO used irregular means to secure data from the seized phone.

In response, the CIO said, “The investigation team does not know and does not need to know the internal circumstances of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office.”

#prosecution #Yoon Seok-youl #Supreme Public Prosecutors Office