The People Power Party (PPP) held a unilateral hearing with Prosecutor Park Sang-yong, who investigated the Ssangbangwool North Korea remittance case, effectively splitting the parliamentary investigation committee in two. The ruling party billed it as a "hearing to investigate baseless claims aimed at erasing Lee Jae-myung's crimes." The solo hearing was held at the same time as a meeting of the "Special Parliamentary Investigation Committee to Investigate Allegations of Fabricated Indictments by the Yoon Suk-yeol Administration's Politicized Prosecution," led by the Democratic Party of Korea.
The PPP held the solo hearing with Prosecutor Park on Wednesday and directly rebutted the ruling party's claims of "fabricated indictments." Lawmakers Na Kyung-won, Kwak Gyu-taek, Song Seok-jun, Yoon Sang-hyun, Shin Dong-wook, and Lee Sang-hwi attended the hearing.
Na said, "The parliamentary investigation to erase Lee Jae-myung's crimes should never have been launched in the first place." She added, "The Democratic Party is trying to block testimony from key witnesses because they are afraid the truth will come out." Na argued that "the National Assembly is trying to twist the prosecution's arm to ultimately achieve the withdrawal of indictments," calling it "a clear abuse of authority."
Earlier, PPP committee members attended a plenary session of the special investigation committee convened for institutional briefings related to the Daejang-dong development corruption case. They demanded the resignation of certain ruling party committee members, including lawmakers Kim Dong-a and Lee Geon-tae, who previously served as defense attorneys for President Lee Jae-myung. They also demanded that Prosecutor Park be guaranteed the right to speak at the hearing scheduled for the 14th of this month, even if he refuses to take the oath.
However, when Special Committee Chairperson Seo Young-kyo rejected these demands, the PPP members walked out of the meeting and immediately convened a separate hearing.
Prosecutor Park had refused to take the witness oath at the special committee's plenary session held on the 3rd of this month. He attempted to explain his reasons but was removed from the session after Chairperson Seo restricted his opportunity to speak.
"I learned of a scenario in which they would file a perjury complaint against me, then use that to launch a special counsel investigation and seek the withdrawal of indictments against President Lee," Prosecutor Park said. "I refused to take the oath to avoid falling into that trap."
Regarding the ruling party's release of recorded conversations to raise suspicions of Prosecutor Park "coercing testimony," he stated, "Attorney Seo Min-seok, the defense lawyer for former Gyeonggi Province Vice Governor Lee Hwa-young, proposed at the time that then-Governor Lee Jae-myung be treated as the principal offender and that his clients be downgraded to accessory offenders so they could be released." He asserted, "It is a clear fact that Attorney Seo's side attempted a kind of 'deal,' seeking to have former Vice Governor Lee classified as an accessory."
