The standing special prosecutor investigating alleged outside pressure on the prosecution's probe into Coupang's severance pay on the 27th sent former Bucheon branch chief of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office Um Hee-jun (now a prosecutor at the Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office) and former deputy chief prosecutor at the Bucheon branch Kim Dong-hee (now a prosecutor at the Busan High Prosecutors' Office) to trial.
The special prosecutor said that day it had filed an indictment with the court against the two prosecutors on charges of abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights. The special prosecutor concluded that the leadership exerted coercion when the Bucheon branch last year cleared Coupang Fulfillment Services, a Coupang subsidiary, of charges.
The special prosecutor also applied the charge of violating the National Assembly Testimony and Appraisal Act to Prosecutor Um. It has also been investigating him on suspicion of perjury for remarks to the effect that Prosecutor Moon Ji-seok, who appeared as a witness at the National Assembly and exposed the allegations, had agreed to the decision to clear the Coupang case.
Prosecutor Um, the person at the center of the allegations, maintains there was "no outside pressure." On the 25th, through a statement, Um said that "(Prosecutor Moon) pressured the lead prosecutor to summon and indict a suspect whose charges were not substantiated in order to become a 'star prosecutor' and gain publicity."