PPP leader says prosecutors must keep supplementary investigation powers as 'last check' on police

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, who visited the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency and the Korean National Police Agency to protest the Jang Yun-gi murder case, said prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers must be preserved.

Jang said on his Facebook page Saturday that "prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers must be kept" and that "what is urgently needed is not the dismantling of the prosecution but police reform."

He went on to say that "dismantling the prosecution will only create a 'monster police force,' and the public will bear the full cost of that."

"Supplementary investigation powers are not simply a means to supplement police investigations — they are the last check on the police," Jang said. "Without them, the Jang Yun-gi case would have ended as a simple murder, and the police's ugly cover-up for their own would have been buried."

He also said that "the legal community, people on the ground and victims all oppose abolishing supplementary investigation powers — only the Democratic Party is going in the opposite direction," adding that "stripping prosecutors of supplementary investigation powers means stripping the public of their lives and safety."