Prosecutors urge Roh veto

An investigation team at the Seoul District Prosecutors Office yesterday recommended that the president veto a bill passed Wednesday by the National Assembly, creating an independent counsel to look into the cash-for-summit scandal. The team volunteered to investigate charges that the Kim Dae-jung government paid off North Korea to realize the June 2000 inter-Korean summit.
Although President Roh moo-hyun has said he would not veto the bill, the suggestion created a stir in legal and political circles.
A chief prosecutor at the Seoul office, Park Young-soo, said at a press briefing yesterday that he presented the team’s suggestion to the head of the office. Mr. Park said, “The scandal is related to our national interests and security and an investigation into it requires secrecy. The prosecution, not an independent counsel, should investigate the charges.” He repeated the team’s hope that President Roh vetoes the bill.
Observers said that the proposal sends a clear message to the politicians who passed the bill and the heads of the prosecution who opted not to investigate the case: The prosecution’s rank-and-file are going to defend their jobs.
Yoo Chang-jong, head of the Seoul office, said, “I do not think it is desirable for a team to make such a proposal. I did not pass it along to the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office.”
An official at the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office said even if the proposal had been presented to the prosecutor general “he would not recommend a veto to the president.”
Some observers outside the prosecution suspect that the prosecutors might have chosen to make the suggestion public to give the Blue House an excuse to veto the bill. Though President Roh said yesterday he would respect the Assembly’s decision to establish the counsel, he and his staff clearly do not relish the prospect of an independent counsel looking into the previous administration’s role in cash transfers to the North.
The main opposition Grand National Party, which forced passage of the bill, said the prosecutors are “making fools of the citizens and the National Assembly, their representative institution.”

by Jo Kang-su