"If all investigative authority had rested only with the police and prosecutors merely had to decide whether to indict based on that, what would have happened to my case? I would have had to remain tied to a painful past and fall into despair. So that there are no victims left neglected without proper investigation or protection, I hope you will listen to the many voices."
This is an essay written by A, a victim of a group sexual assault in Sejong, for the Ministry of Justice's supplement-to-investigation best practices booklet published on the 26th, titled "Let the crime sleep, let no injustice remain."
The Ministry of Justice said it published the booklet that day, compiling 77 exemplary cases in which prosecutors received cases where police investigations were inadequate and established the facts through supplemental investigations.
Under the ruling camp's so-called "prosecution reform," the prosecution service will be abolished in Oct. next year and split into a Public Prosecution Service under the Ministry of Justice and a Serious Crime Investigation Service under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. It has not been decided whether prosecutors will be allowed to supplement cases forwarded by investigative agencies after that, but the Ministry of Justice has issued a booklet asserting that the authority to conduct supplemental investigations is necessary.
Within the Democratic Party of Korea, there are calls against giving prosecutors the authority to conduct supplemental investigations, drawing attention. Minister Jung Sung-ho wrote in the foreword, "The police are doing their best, but we cannot guarantee that police investigations are flawless," adding, "If we cannot collateral the completeness of the first-stage investigation and supplemental investigations are banned, we must coolly examine whether ordinary people are harmed."
A, who wrote that supplemental investigations by prosecutors are necessary, was 14 in 2018 when peers sexually assaulted A in a group attack. Threatened by the perpetrators, A reported the crime to police in Feb. 2024, five years after the incident. After a 10-month investigation, police declined to refer major charges, saying some of A's memories were unclear, but prosecutors obtained detailed statements from key witnesses and secured full confessions from suspects who had denied the allegations.
A letter from B, the victim in the "Busan roundhouse kick case," was also included in the booklet. B said, "If there were problems with the prosecution's investigation, the first step is to come up with countermeasures for that. But a decision to abolish the institution itself is utterly bewildering," adding, "Since the discussions on prosecution reform began, the stories of crime victims whom the state should protect have not once been placed at the center."
At the appeals stage, prosecutors conducted a DNA analysis of the clothing B wore at the time to determine whether the perpetrator committed a sexual offense against B, and secured new testimony. They proved the perpetrator's attempted rape and murder, and the court handed down a heavy sentence of 20 years in prison and a 20-year attachment of an electronic location-tracking device.
In another case, a man in his 60s, C, sexually assaulted a 13-year-old child, but police, believing only C's claims, forwarded the case as simple prostitution; prosecutors revealed through a supplemental investigation that it was a sexual assault crime. In Aug. 2023, late at night, C approached D, a girl who was with a friend at a neighborhood park, won favor by giving snacks and pocket money, then engaged in a quasi-sexual act and attempted sexual intercourse before failing and sending her away. When D, out of shame, could not properly testify to the victimization, police sent the case to prosecutors on suspicion of child prostitution. The prosecutor in charge built a trust relationship with D and obtained a detailed statement, then arrested and indicted C on charges of raping a minor.
Corruption by a police officer who, after the adjustment of investigative authority between prosecutors and police, used the police's case-closure power to take bribes worth hundreds of millions of won in exchange for burying cases was also revealed through the prosecution's supplemental investigation. Acting on an order to reinvestigate, prosecutors looked again into cases previously dismissed and found that Inspector D had taken 210 million won in bribes from a loan broker and either declined to refer or referred with non-indictment opinions a total of 16 fraud cases. Inspector D also provided fugitive funds to a suspect wanted on an arrest warrant.