Prosecutors “Difficult to understand…planning to investigate more thoroughly”
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[앵커]
Former Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, Baek Woon-gyu, who was accused of engaging in the operation of the economic evaluation of Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1, escaped arrest. At the dawn of today (9th), the Daejeon District Court dismissed the arrest warrant of Baek Jeon, who was charged with abuse of authority, obstruction of exercise of rights, and obstruction of work. Oh Se-yong, chief judge in charge of warrants, said, “It is not enough to say that the prosecution’s vocation has been fulfilled enough and there is room for contention.” After undergoing a warrant examination, former Minister Baek, who was waiting in Daejeon Prison, returned home.
Earlier, when he came to court, former Minister Baek claimed to have handled his affairs lawfully. The prosecution, seeing that former Minister Baek gave an unfair order, was planning to expand the investigation into the office of the secretary in charge of the Blue House. After the decision to dismiss the warrant came out, the prosecutors announced that they would investigate more thoroughly.
This is Sung Moon-kyu.
[기자]
The court judged the case for six hours yesterday afternoon, and found that there was “a room for contention”.
“The prosecution’s vocation on the allegation of former Minister Baek Un-gyu is insufficient, so it is necessary to ensure that the suspects can exercise their defense rights in a disabled state,” he said.
It was also said that it was difficult to conclude that there were concerns about destruction of evidence, as two officials from the Ministry of Industry have already been arrested.
After being interrogated, former Minister Baek, who had been waiting in Daejeon Prison for more than three hours, returned home when the warrant was dismissed.
It was reiterated that there was no illegal in the process of early shutdown of the Wolseong nuclear power plant unit 1.
[백운규/전 산업통상자원부 장관 : 월성 1호기 조기 폐쇄는 국민의 안전을 최우선해 수립한 국정과제였습니다.]
The prosecution believes that former Minister Baek gave an unfair order, abused his authority, intervened in economic evaluation, and hindered his work.
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, in April 2018, when the head of the Ministry of Industry, Moo Jung, reported a plan to “operate temporarily” even if the decision to close Wolsong 1 early came out, he rebuked him severely and said, “Immediate operation” when the decision was made. I was told to report again to stop’.
Eventually, the revised report led to the decision of KHNP’s board of directors to close early and stop immediately two months later.
However, as the warrant against former Minister Baek was dismissed, the investigation of the alleged Wolseong nuclear power plant was put to a standstill.
Chae Hee-bong, former Blue House industrial policy secretary, and other prosecutors’ plans to expand the investigation into the so-called’upper line’ became inevitable.
The political burden has also increased.
Passports have been protesting against the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant investigation as’excessive political investigations against government policies’ or’abuse of prosecutors’ powers’.
There are also observations that the blow is inevitable even for Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol, who took care of this case.
The prosecution made a brief stance saying,’We will investigate more thoroughly,’ and went into a review of whether to request a warrant again.
(Video Design: Kim Choong-Hyeon)
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