Initially prosecutors looked like they had the will to see the investigation through. They got a warrant for Im's arrest, and in the course of the trials for former executives they amended the arraignment to make it state that Im was a co-conspirator in the illegalities. However, no clear progress was made in the investigation since early 2003, and eventually they stopped calling him in a "witness" capacity. Later they tried to amend the arraignment once again, so that Im would no longer be written up as having been party to the corrupt activities. That is hard to make sense of, especially when you compare it to the position taken by the court, which said there is plenty reason to believe he was involved.
People are especially taking note of the fact that the prosecution turnaround came at around the same time a certain Hong Seok Jo became chief prosecutor for the district, Hong being related to Im by marriage. The decision to stop classifying him as a witness came immediately before Hong arrived at the job; prosecution officials say that was done so as "not to leave unnecessary work for the new chief prosecutor." The attempt to change the arraignment again occurred immediately after Hong took over. There is something strange about that, since it leaves room for questions about whether the work was being handled impartially.
If a court says there is ample suspicion about Im without hearing any more from him then he should be indicted. Furthermore there are other suspicions in the wake of confirmation that Im's lawyers repeatedly requested that the arraignment be changed.
There needs to be an official inquiry into what happened, to see whether there were directions given from above and whether working-level prosecutors expressed any objections. In order to be objective and reliable the inquiry should be done by the responsible bureau at the Justice Ministry or a commission of private individuals appointed to do so, instead of leaving it to the national prosecutor's office. The inquiry needs to be a rigorous one, because it also needs to be able to prove that the Justice Ministry and the prosecution has the ability to clean things up on their own.
The Hankyoreh, 22 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]