Lee Jung-hoon, head of the food and drug crime investigation division at the Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office, has announced his resignation. Lee, who investigated allegations that first lady Kim Keon-hee sold government posts and favors, said he would leave the prosecution service, citing concerns over an overhaul of the criminal justice system that would abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers.
According to legal circles on the 21st, Lee wrote on the prosecution's internal network e-Pros that day: "I am someone who believes that all things in the world have a balance — a just state, a healthy state — and that even if that balance is temporarily broken, it will ultimately be restored." He added, "The enactment and revision of the Criminal Procedure Act and related laws, which strip citizens even of the right to have supplementary investigations conducted by prosecutors, severely upset the balance of the criminal justice system."
He also said, "I believe this loss of balance will someday be restored as well," adding, "I am sorry that I cannot be part of that arduous process, and I will do my best if there is a role for me to play from the outside."
Lee closed with a farewell to colleagues, citing "Everyone Is a Flower," a children's song his eldest daughter taught him when she was about six years old. "All of you are flowers, so all of you are precious. I hope you tend to yourselves beautifully," he said.
A graduate of Gyeongsang High School in Changwon and the law school at Pusan National University, Lee passed the 48th bar examination in 2006 and began his career in 2009 as a prosecutor at the Jinju branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office. He served as a deputy chief prosecutor in the tax crime investigation division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office from 2023 before being dispatched in June last year to the special counsel team investigating Kim, where he examined allegations that the first lady received money and valuables in return for arranging government appointments and business favors. After the special counsel's work ended, he was appointed head of the food and drug crime investigation division at the Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office, where he led a joint investigation team on illegal pharmaceutical crimes.
Separately, Kim Min-a, a prosecutor at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office who took part in the investigation of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and the trial of former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, also announced her resignation the same day. "Having fulfilled my duties as a prosecutor of the prosecution service, I intend to resign on the day the prosecution service is abolished," Kim wrote on e-Pros. "I have never encountered, nor even imagined, a prosecutor who does not investigate."
Kim said, "The system of the Corruption Investigation Office and the Major Crimes Investigation Agency, pushed through in a half-finished state, is a dangerous experiment on the public and will bring serious side effects." She stressed, "I dare to predict that there will be a better design and restoration of the prosecution system, one that conforms to the authority and role granted to the prosecution by the Constitution."
A graduate of Pusan National University, Kim has served as a prosecutor in the first special investigation division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, head of its fifth trial division, head of the third anti-corruption division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and chief of the Mokpo branch office. In 2011, as a prosecutor in the first special investigation division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, she handled the trial of former Prime Minister Han, who was indicted on charges of violating the Political Funds Act. In 2019, as a deputy chief prosecutor in the third special investigation division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, she also worked on the investigation involving Cho, then the justice minister.
