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| Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il bows his head in apology during a press conference at the Prosecution History Museum at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il issued a public apology Tuesday for the prosecution's past failures to properly investigate and press charges in politically sensitive cases ― one month after a special committee wrapped up its investigation into 17 such cases.
"The prosecution repents for its failure to protect the people's basic rights and fairly exercise its investigative powers," Moon said in a press conference at the Supreme Prosecutor's Office.
The Special Committee on Past Wrongdoings by the Prosecution was set up in February last year under the Justice Ministry to review whether some politically sensitive issues were properly and fairly investigated.
Moon apologized to the victims and their families, who were unfairly treated or investigated according to the committee.
"In some cases where people's human rights were abused by the state authorities, the facts were scaled down or covered up. And the prosecution failed to ignore false testimony or fabricated evidence, neglecting its duty to protect people's basic rights."
In eight of the 17 cases, the committee urged the prosecution to apologize to the victims or their families. Prosecutor General Moon heeded the recommendation for the four that were buried under military-backed regimes between 1985 and 1991.
Moon personally met up with the father of Park Jong-chul ― a pro-democracy student activist who was tortured to death by police in 1987 ― in March last year to offer the prosecution's apology, acknowledging the prosecution at the time cooperated in an attempt to cover up the death as a heart attack. Last week Moon also visited surviving families of pro-democracy activists killed by state violence. In November, he even shed tears during his public apology to victims of the Busan Brothers Welfare Center where massive human rights abuses and hundreds of deaths took place.
"The prosecution feels heavily responsible for the controversy that continued even after the cases were closed in court, for failing to retain neutrality in politically-charged cases or thoroughly seek out the truth," Moon said.
The prosecution said it will take the lessons of its past to ensure justice in its institutions and investigative procedures.
Moon, however, has not offered specific apologies for the 2009 Yongsan Disaster, where five tenants at a building died during a protest, or the 2012 pro-North Korea spy framing scandal by the National Intelligence Agency against Seoul Metropolitan Government official Yoo Woo-sung.
Two days ago, an evictee who had served a jail term for involvement in the Yongsan Disaster, committed suicide due to trauma-based depression. Last month, the committee asked the prosecution to apologize to the evictees and the dead victims' families for conducting a rushed autopsy of the victims without their permission and withholding part of its investigative records from the charged evictees in their trials despite a court order.
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