Won Hee-ryong, former Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, who faces allegations of misconduct related to the route change and scrapping of the Yangpyeong Expressway, appeared before Kwon Chang-young's second consolidated special counsel team on the 23rd.
The consolidated special counsel summoned the former Minister as a suspect on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of the exercise of rights from 10 a.m. today and is under investigation. This is the first time the former Minister has appeared before the consolidated special counsel. The consolidated special counsel notified the former Minister of appearance twice, but the notice could not be delivered due to a closed door and no one present.
The former Minister arrived at the consolidated special counsel's office in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, at about 9:46 a.m. and told reporters, "There are no illegal facts, so it will not go as the special counsel intends."
The Yangpyeong Expressway route change allegation is that in 2023 the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), while pushing the Seoul–Yangpyeong expressway project, changed the terminus route to an area around land owned by first lady Kim Keon-hee's family, giving them "special favors." The original Yangseo-myeon terminus route had passed the preliminary feasibility study in 2021, but when MOLIT in May 2023 reviewed a terminus route in Gangsang-myeon, where the Kim family's land is located, suspicions of favoritism arose. As controversy grew, the former Minister declared the project scrapped in July of the same year.
The consolidated special counsel is examining whether, in the process, the former Minister failed to follow due procedure. Earlier, the special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki, which investigated the same case, indicted a MOLIT assistant director surnamed Kim and Korea Expressway Corporation (KEC) employees on charges of abuse of power, but did not establish charges against the former Minister Won Hee-ryong, identified as the "higher-up."
After taking over the case, the consolidated special counsel banned the former Minister from leaving the country in March and in April conducted searches and seizures at the National Information Resources Service, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and against former Vice Minister Baek Won-guk of MOLIT, among others. On the 15th, it seized the former Minister's mobile phone.
The former Minister fully denies the charges. He also said that day, "After investigating for more than a year on the claim that special favors for the expressway were pushed, perhaps realizing it is impossible, they now seem set to change the investigation target to the declaration to scrap the project."