Former Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu remains free

Former Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu leaves the Seoul Dongbu Detention Center in southern Seoul late Wednesday night after a local court rejected a detention warrant for him. [YONHAP]

A local court turned down a detention warrant request for former Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu over suspicions he forced heads of public organizations to resign, citing “room for dispute” on some allegations.

The Seoul Eastern District Court made the decision Wednesday night, two days after prosecutors asked for the warrant for the former Moon Jae-in administration’s first minister of trade, industry and energy.

Prosecutors at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office believe that Paik, who began as Moon’s trade minister in July 2017, two months after Moon was inaugurated, forced the heads of public organizations affiliated with his ministry to step down because they were appointed by the preceding Park Geun-hye administration.

A big question is whether Moon was involved in Paik’s alleged pressure, and whether the probe of Paik would lead to a broader crackdown on Moon and his allies. Wednesday’s court decision marked a setback for prosecutors trying to prove the possible link – though it won't stop them from digging deeper.

After hours of deliberation on the request, the court said Wednesday that most of the allegations against Paik were substantiated, but some were disputable.

The court added that there seemed to be zero possibility of Paik putting pressure on suspects or witnesses if he was left at large.

Because prosecutors already amassed a huge amount of evidence against the former trade minister, the court said it was “difficult to see” that Paik would try to destroy evidence that prosecutors hadn’t gotten a hold of.

Ministers mostly hold the legal authority to appoint the chiefs of public organizations affiliated with their ministries – or formally offer recommendations to the president – but prosecutors say forcing them to leave before their terms officially end without a just reason amounts to abuse of power.

Apart from allegedly forcing the public organization chiefs to step down, prosecutors believe Paik leaked interview questions to at least one candidate handpicked by the Moon government, allowing the candidate to score high marks during a screening process. Candidates are normally screened several times by a vetting committee within the public organization they’re applying to and a separate committee led by the minister of economy and finance.

Prosecutors so far have discovered no evidence that Paik directly worked on Moon’s order, but they suspect Moon’s senior secretary for personnel affairs, Cho Hyun-ok, who’s now the Korean ambassador to Germany, was heavily involved in suspect personnel decisions.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]