Gwak Sang-do, a former People Power Party lawmaker who was indicted on charges of concealing 5 billion won in bribes received from private businessman Kim Man-bae in the Daejang-dong development project but received a dismissal of indictment at the first trial, signaled legal action against prosecutors.
On the 7th, an attorney for the former lawmaker issued a statement and said, "We plan to file a civil damages suit and a criminal complaint over the illegal acts of prosecutors, who abused their prosecutorial power to bring an unjust indictment."
The attorney said, "The illegal indictment by prosecutors should have been judged at the early stage of the trial, but it was not," adding, "Even if a dismissal of indictment is belatedly handed down, it offers no remedy to a defendant indicted through abuse of the right to prosecute."
The attorney for the former lawmaker said, "Our criminal procedure does not have a system of interlocutory judgments or a preliminary hearing," and added, "We hope this case serves as an opportunity to remedy institutional shortcomings in criminal procedure."
The attorney continued, "We hope the prosecution will stop seeking to reinforce its illegal acts through an appeal and to expand the harm to the defendant, who has suffered irreparable damage from state power," urging prosecutors to drop their appeal.
The previous day, the Criminal Agreement Division 23 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Oh Se-yong) dismissed the indictment against the former lawmaker, who had been brought to trial on charges of violating the Act on Regulation and Punishment of Criminal Proceeds Concealment.
The court said, "Instead of going through the appellate procedure in the prior case of the defendants, the prosecutor arbitrarily exercised the right to prosecute with the intent to overturn the result by effectively obtaining two first-instance rulings through a separate indictment," and found that "this constitutes an abuse of the right to prosecute."