'Han Dong-hoon's daughter's false specifications' Seoul Heavy Water and Water Administration dividend... Civil group demands for re-investigation (comprehensive)

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Seung-yeon and Jeon Jae-hoon = The case filed again by civic groups regarding the suspicion of false specifications of the daughter of independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon was assigned to the Seoul Regional Heavy Water Investigation Office.

According to the legal community on the 16th, the Central Investigation Agency assigned the case of a member accused of third-party bribery, destruction of evidence, obstruction of business, etc. to the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau of the Seoul Regional Central Investigation Agency.

The civic group Citizens' Action to Correct Judicial Justice (Sasehaeng) reported four people, including Rep. Han Dong-hoon and his spouse, lawyer Jin Eun-jung, to the Central Investigation Agency the day before on suspicion of false specifications of Rep. Han Dong-hoon's daughter.

Suspicion of false qualifications by Rep. Han's daughter arose in 2022 when Rep. Han was a candidate for Minister of Justice.

At the time, suspicions were raised that Rep. Han and Attorney Jin had received a used laptop from a company to support their daughter's qualifications and donated it to a welfare center. The fact that the company's executives and Attorney Jin were alumni was pointed out as a link.

There were also suspicions that her daughter ghostwrote and plagiarized papers for overseas academic conferences and that she inflated her volunteer hours.

The day before, Sasehaeng submitted a complaint to the Central Investigation Agency, saying, “Despite related reports and complaints from civic groups, the related investigation has never been properly conducted.”

Recently, as suspicions were raised that a lawmaker had ignored the police investigation into his daughter's suspicion of false qualifications while serving as Minister of Justice, a civil group complaint was made again regarding the main incident.

In 2023, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Anti-Corruption and Public Crimes Investigation Unit ruled that a lawmaker, his spouse, and his daughter were not guilty on suspicions of inflating volunteer work hours and ghostwriting papers, and decided not to forward the case.

Meanwhile, the complaint filed by a civic group regarding the suspicion of congressman Han's obstruction of the investigation was transferred from the National Investigation Headquarters of the National Police Agency to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

Previously, civic groups such as the People's Livelihood Economic Research Institute and the Voice of Seoul filed charges against lawmaker Han and the prosecutors suspected of being involved in tampering with the investigation at the time on charges of abuse of power, obstruction of the exercise of rights, and dereliction of duty.

These organizations also filed a complaint with the Central Investigation Agency, but dividends have not yet been paid.

The suspicion of tampering with the investigation is that in November 2022, when a lawmaker was being investigated for suspicion of false information about his daughter, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Anti-Corruption and Public Crimes Investigation Unit requested the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to 'apply for international criminal justice assistance' in order to secure related overseas evidence, but was blocked by the prosecution.

At the time, the police were trying to confirm the truth of the suspicion that a congressman's daughter had created an e-book using math problems created by someone else and sold it to the American e-commerce company Amazon for $0.99.

Cooperation was requested, but in December of the same year, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office decided not to send it to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and the Ministry of Justice for reasons such as the fact that the case was minor.

The accusers argued that an investigation should be conducted into whether a lawmaker who was the Minister of Justice at the time was involved in this decision.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency issued a press notice on this day and explained, "A complaint related to suspicions of obstruction of the investigation of Rep. Han Dong-hoon was transferred to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on the 15th," and "We plan to allocate the case after carefully reviewing the contents."