Prosecution will indict Kang without detention

Prosecutors yesterday announced they will indict without detention controversial professor Kang Jeong-koo on charges of violating the National Security Law, after he sparked a furor with his outspokenly pro-North Korean remarks.
Mr. Kang, a Dongguk University professor of sociology, kindled the controversy by writing a column for an Internet media outlet last July, where he defined the Korean War as the “North Korean leadership’s effort for unification.”
Mr. Kang also described U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, generally acknowledged a hero of the Korean War, as “the slaughterer of civilians,” and followed up with continued pro-North Korean, anti-American remarks.
After a conservative civic group filed a petition calling for prosecutors to investigate Mr. Kang’s comments, Justice Minister Chun Jung-bae ordered that the professor not be detained.
In protest at that order, then-Prosecutor General Kim Jong-bin resigned from his post, while the Blue House officially backed the Justice Minister.
Seoul District Public Prosecutors’ Office has summoned Mr. Kang several times for questioning.
A staff member of the prosecutors’ office said yesterday, “We decided on indictment without detention, because no additional charges were found, after the Justice Minister ordered us not to detain Mr. Kang.”

by Chun Su-jin