Special prosecutor wraps up 6-month probe with 58 indictments, leaves trail of controversy

The second comprehensive special prosecutor's team — which styled itself "the sword of the Constitution" when it launched in February under Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young — has concluded six months of operations, indicting 58 people including former President Yoon Suk Yeol on charges of directing the transmission of messages to allied nations justifying the Dec. 3, 2024, emergency martial law declaration. The team drew sustained criticism over political neutrality and investigative competence and will now have its work judged by the courts as it moves into the trial phase.

At a final briefing held Monday at its offices in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, the team said it had investigated remaining allegations left after three earlier special prosecutor probes — covering the insurrection, first lady Kim Keon Hee and the Marine Corps corporal case — and had indicted 58 additional people, including Yoon, through Sunday.

One of the team's central unresolved tasks had been the so-called "No Sang-won notebook," widely described as a smoking gun containing evidence of martial law preparations. The trial court handling Yoon's insurrection case declined to admit the notebook as evidence, and the team ultimately failed to resolve the issue within its investigative period, handing the matter over to the Korean National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters.

The team said Monday that it had redeployed the minimum staff needed to maintain prosecutions as its investigative mandate expired, and that it had amended the special prosecutor act to allow attorneys among its special investigators with sufficient experience to participate in trial proceedings — adding qualified investigators for that purpose. Unresolved cases, it said, would be transferred to the National Investigation Headquarters.

Among the team's more notable outcomes was its work on allegations surrounding the relocation of the presidential residence. The team brought additional charges against first lady Kim Keon Hee — for violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (solicitation of bribes) and abuse of authority — in connection with allegations that a specific contractor received preferential treatment during the relocation process under the Yoon administration.

The team also secured the detention and indictment of Yoo Byung-ho, former secretary general of the Board of Audit and Inspection, on charges of abusing his supervisory authority to obstruct auditors' independent exercise of their audit powers and compelling them to perform acts outside their duties — effectively suppressing an audit. Applying charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of rights, the team obtained custody of Yoo and sent him to trial in detention.

Throughout its operations, the team repeatedly emphasized a "heavy-tail" strategy — concentrating arrests and indictments in the latter stages of the investigation — arguing that the cases it inherited were inherently more difficult and that it was short-staffed relative to earlier special prosecutor teams. It concluded its six-month run, extended through a legal amendment, amid persistent criticism over investigative capacity, political neutrality, overzealous prosecutions and a pattern of transferring cases to other agencies.

The prevailing assessment of the team's six-month record is that it fell short. A key indicator is the high rate at which courts rejected its arrest warrant applications. Of all the warrants the team sought after its launch, courts granted only seven: former Secretary General Yoo in the audit-suppression case; three people including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Jeong Jin-pal on insurrection charges; two people including former presidential Chief of Staff Kim Dae-gi in the residence-relocation case; and former first deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo in the martial-law justification messaging case. The team's arrest warrant rejection rate stood at 65 percent. According to the 2025 judicial yearbook, courts granted 76.9 percent of arrest warrants in ordinary criminal cases in 2024, rejecting 23.1 percent.

The team was embroiled in controversy almost from the moment it launched. Deputy Special Prosecutor Kim Ji-mi appeared in April on "Jeong Jun-hee's Non," a segment on the pro-ruling-party YouTube channel "Kim Eou-joon's Humility Is Hard News Factory," where she discussed the status of ongoing investigations.

Critics also pointed to the fatigue caused by the team's repeated clashes with other institutions, including the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and earlier special prosecutor teams. In April, the team asked the Ministry of Justice to discipline then-acting Prosecutor General Gu Ja-hyeon and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's inspector general, accusing the office of obstructing the investigation by refusing to cooperate with document requests — only to withdraw the request recently.

The team also clashed with the insurrection special prosecutor's office led by Special Prosecutor Jo Eun-seok over differing legal judgments. A prominent example was the indictment of Col. Jo Seong-hyeon, former commander of the Capital Defense Command's 1st Security Regiment, known for the so-called "Seogang Bridge withdrawal." The insurrection special prosecutor's office had declined to charge Jo, finding insufficient evidence of insurrection involvement, but the comprehensive team indicted him on charges of performing an important role in an insurrection. The two offices took opposing positions on whether to prosecute him.

The decision to indict Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service — who had been called a whistleblower after revealing a list of politicians, including President Lee Jae Myung, targeted for arrest — also diverged from the insurrection special prosecutor's approach. After launching searches of the NIS, the comprehensive team investigated Hong and others on suspicion that the NIS had participated in the insurrection at an institutional level. Hong has pushed back, accusing the team of selectively using only evidence unfavorable to him.

Ultimately, the courts' verdicts on the team's decisions will determine whether its work is judged a success or failure. The team's heavy-tail strategy produced a wave of indictments of key suspects near the end of its mandate, and judicial rulings on those cases will be closely watched. Also significant will be how courts rule on the team's decision to treat the insurrection as having ended not on Dec. 4, 2024 — when martial law was lifted — but on Dec. 14 of that year, when Yoon's presidential duties were suspended following the passage of his impeachment motion.

Despite six months of operations, the team was unable to close numerous cases and ended up transferring them to police. Allegations surrounding the Yangpyeong Expressway involving former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong, suspicions that an investigation into the first lady's Dior bag was suppressed, and allegations that former Korean National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-geun interfered in an investigation into the Unification Church were all transferred in bulk to the National Investigation Headquarters. On the suppression of the investigation into first lady Kim's alleged involvement in the Deutsch Motors share-price manipulation, the team said identifying the roles of Yoon and Kim was "the most important task" — but ultimately indicted only former Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office chief Lee Chang-su and others.

The team's handling of the Ssangbangul North Korea remittance case — which it had described as a suspected "mega-scale abuse of power" — drew criticism that it had improperly taken the case from the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office. The team obtained the case files from that office on the basis that the matter fell within its investigative mandate, but courts twice rejected its search and seizure warrant applications, ruling that the case did not fall within the team's jurisdiction. The team ultimately closed the matter with a finding of no prosecutorial authority and said it would transfer the records to the National Investigation Headquarters.