Deputy Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu was investigated by the police for over 19 hours six months after the assault on a taxi driver.
Deputy Minister Lee, who attended the anti-corruption and public crime investigation team of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency around 8 am on the 30th, returned home at 3:20 am on the 31st the next day after completing an investigation into the alleged destruction of evidence.
Deputy Minister Lee left the office building without answering reporters' questions while riding in the black Mercedes-Benz car he was riding in.
On November 6, last year, about three weeks before the appointment of the vice minister, he got drunk and took a taxi and arrived in front of his home in Seocho-gu, Seoul, and grabbed a taxi driver who woke him up and reported it to the police.
After the incident, Vice Minister Lee contacted the victim, a taxi driver, and tried to reach an agreement, requesting that the black box video containing the assault be deleted.
The police are examining whether this behavior is a teacher of destruction of evidence.
At that time, the police applied the charge of assault under the Criminal Act, which is an anti-indictment crime, instead of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (Special Act) to Vice Minister Lee, and the case was closed without entrusting Lee with the fact that the victim did not want to be punished.
When the assault case became known after Lee took office, suspicions of a poor investigation arose.
It is pointed out that the application of simple assault charges rather than a special law that aggravates assault on drivers is not a 'look-ahead investigation'.
In response, the police established a fact-finding team in January of this year to investigate the allegations, such as analyzing the phone calls of those involved in the investigation.
An official from the Seocho Police Station in charge of the original case claimed that when investigating Lee, he knew only that he was a lawyer and did not know his specific career.
However, as a result of the fact-finding investigation, it was revealed that the executives in Seocho-seo shared the fact that Lee was mentioned as one of the first candidates for the high-ranking official's crime investigation office at the time.
The prosecution, which is re-investigating the assault case, summoned Lee as a suspect on the 22nd and investigated it.
At that time, an investigation into the allegations of police custody investigation is ongoing.
Deputy Minister Lee, who had been under investigation by the police at the same time for alleged assault, resigned on the 28th, six months after taking office.
(Yonhap News/Photo = Yonhap News)