Prosecutors cleared Pastor Kim Gun-hee and Choi Jae-young of "luxury bag."

[Anchor]
Prosecutors who investigated the luxury bag case of First Lady Kim Gun-hee of Yoon Suk Yeol have disposed of both the President and his wife and those involved in the case without indictment.

The prosecution held a tea time today and explained the background of the case.

Let's talk to the reporter in more detail.

Reporter Shin Ji-won is here. Hello.

[Reporter]
Yes, hello.

[Anchor]
All officials involved in the luxury bag case have been indicted, so can you briefly point out the singularity?

[Reporter]
The prosecution held a PPT briefing session for nearly two hours at 2 p.m. today in the conference room of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

PPT alone has more than a hundred pages, and investigation records amount to 11,500 pages.

First of all, in order to explain the disposition of this case, two conditions must be considered to determine whether it is a public official or whether it is job-related.

First of all, based on the status of public officials, non-prosecution was expected to some extent because there was no punishment regulation for the spouse of public officials for violating the anti-graft law.

Similarly, bribery and abuse of authority are charges that apply only to public officials.

[Anchor]
Job relevance Above all, job relevance was an issue, but why did the prosecution decide that it was not related to the job?

[Reporter]
In short, it's a bag you gave to meet Mrs. Kim and shoot, not a bag you gave to ask for her job.

In this regard, Lee, a reporter of the Internet media "Sound of Seoul," who provided Pastor Choi with the cost of purchasing luxury bags worth 3 million won and hidden cameras, stated in the prosecution investigation.

"If there was a request for the purpose of the request, there was no need to secretly shoot while giving a bag," he said, adding that there was no request for his job.

Once it is determined that there is no job relevance, there is no mediation or violation of the Lawyers Act that applies to civilians.

The charge of mediation is established only when there is both a request for the president's duties and 2. a price for mediation,
Even if you interpret the presidential duties very broadly
, there is no circumstance that Mrs. Kim arranged a request like this, saying, 'I will tell the president well.'

[Anchor]
The Prosecution Investigation Review Committee also recommended prosecution against Pastor Choi Jae-young, but didn't Pastor Choi himself admit his intention to solicit?

Why didn't the prosecution follow the recommendation?

[Reporter]
Yes, last month, the Prosecution Investigation Review Committee recommended that Kim, who received the luxury bag, not prosecuted, and Pastor Choi, who gave the bag, be prosecuted.

This is the first time the prosecution has not followed the recommendation of the investigation review committee to prosecute.

It was found that the Investigation Review Committee did not make a specific judgment on the job relevance.

The main reason for the prosecution's judgment of innocence was that Pastor Choi's statements on whether or not to ask for favors were mixed.

Let's listen to the press conference on the 25th first, and listen to the words mentioned in the broadcast appearance in June in order.

[Choi Jae-young / Pastor (Press conference on the 25th): (The Investigation Review Committee) proved that it is related to the job and that there is a request....]

[Choi Jae-young / Pastor (Jang Yoon-sun's convenience store appeared on YouTube in June)] We talked about it then. It's not like I'm a quid pro quo or job related at all....]

In the end, Pastor Choi made various suggestions, such as the burial of former U.S. Congressman Kim Chang-joon's national cemetery and the resumption of unification TV transmission, but it is difficult to say that it is a consistent and specific request.

The prosecution also seems to have judged that it is inconsistent to dispose of the person who gave the bag and the person who received it separately.

[Anchor]
There was a lot of controversy during the controversial investigation, so would it have affected the outcome of the disposition?

[Reporter]
Since there is so much controversy, the prosecution specifically mentioned the investigation team's position in the press reference.

Even if it may not be contrary to the public legal sentiment, it was a conclusion made with the approval of all the prosecution's investigation team, so I had no choice but to dismiss it according to my professional conscience.

In the case of Pastor Choi Jae-young and Seoul's Sori reporter, in addition to the anti-graft law charges, they cleared them of defamation or innocence, including filming hidden cameras, and acted for the public good on issues of high public interest. He said that it was in the release of the secretly filmed video, and that he judged that it was not a real crime, even if it could be a crime if it only considered the reason for the sculpture of illegality, that is, the facts.

Also, controversy arose once in July when the prosecution summoned Kim Gun-hee in a closed-door investigation at a third place.

At that time, there was a controversy over the preferential investigation when prosecutors returned their phones for security reasons, and it seems that they were conscious of various controversies, such as not reporting in advance to former Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok at the time.

[Anchor]
There was also controversy over passing the president at the time. When you directly investigated Kim Gun-hee, the private summons you mentioned, you also investigated the receipt of this luxury bag, but you also investigated the Deutsche Motors stock price manipulation case. Why didn't we deal with these two cases together?

[Reporter]
First of all, in the case of luxury bag cases, the facts themselves are relatively simple. In addition, there have been some changes in the recent appeals court ruling regarding the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case against the main market manipulators. As the charges of aiding and abetting among accomplices, as well as the main culprit of stock price manipulation, were found guilty.

[Anchor]
There's a guilty verdict on Jeonju.

[Reporter]
That's right. Therefore, the prosecution seems to be agonizing over how Kim Gun-hee or Kim's mother Choi Eun-soon will be a variable after being found guilty of aiding and abetting the Jeonju Son was sentenced to six months in prison and one year of probation.

[Anchor]
Then, will the luxury bag investigation announced today and the non-prosecution today affect the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case?

[Reporter]
First of all, I don't know how it will be considered politically political, but it seems that it will not be easy to have influence because the prosecutor general has been excluded from the right to command the investigation. Also, all the main forces have already been prosecuted. Therefore, as in the case of Pastor Choi Jae-young, it is difficult for the person involved in the case to ask to hold an investigation review committee, so it is expected that it will be left to the judgment of the investigation team of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

[Anchor]
We will wait and see the results of the future investigation.

So far, I've been with reporter Shin Ji-won. Thank you.