[사설]Police covered in’assault video’ Lee Yong-gu deserves the right to terminate the investigation

On the 23rd, a taxi driver who reported to the police that he had been assaulted by the Vice Minister of Justice Lee Yong-gu said in an interview with Channel A and others on the 23rd, “I showed a black box video taken with a mobile phone in an additional investigation of the police on November 11 last year, but the investigator in charge has not seen the video. I said I would do it.” The police ordered the relevant investigator on standby and initiated an investigation by forming a fact-finding team headed by the head of the investigation department of the Seoul Police Agency. The police said that there was no black box video in the first place and the taxi driver did not want to be punished. However, assault while driving is an assault under the Certain Crime Weighted Penalty Act, and is punished even if the victim does not want to be punished. In the black box video, there is still a scene where Vice Minister Lee catches a taxi driver. If so, the investigation agency should have officially established it and carefully investigated whether or not the car was in operation, and condemned it. If the investigator in charge decides not to watch the video, it is itself illegal.

Deputy Minister Lee, who was a lawyer at the time of the case, returned home without being investigated, even though he was a current criminal, and did not respond to the police’s request for attendance. However, it was revealed that the taxi driver was asked to delete the black box video, and the taxi driver did not reveal the existence of the video in the first police investigation on November 6 last year. Vice Minister Lee should resign and be investigated.

Earlier this year, the police took over the right to terminate the investigation from the prosecution. If the prosecution had not decided to re-investigate the case, the case would have been dealt with. The police did not properly investigate the truth about the Drucking comment case and the sexual harassment of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon. If it is revealed that external pressure has been applied to the investigator in charge as a result of the prosecution’s re-investigation, it cannot be done so that the police officer resigns. The political and legal circles should clearly recognize that the more the prosecutors hand over the power of direct investigation, the greater the necessity of leaving the right to terminate the investigation to the prosecution, and reconsideration of the right to investigate.