Several prosecutors have hit back at Justice Minister Park Beom-kye after he expressed regret over the prosecution’s decision not to re-investigate a bribery case involving former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook. 

In an interview with Yonhap News on Monday, a senior prosecutor working at a district in the greater Seoul area described the minister’s move as a desperate effort to find fault after the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office made a conclusion he did not want. 

The prosecutor particularly took issue with Park’s criticism over how the SPO deliberation was conducted, including its decision to summon a prosecutor who had handled the case some ten years earlier. 

Another prosecutor told Yonhap that the SPO must have deliberated with better knowledge of the case and with more political neutrality than the minister. 

The minister conveyed his stance on Monday, three days after high-ranking prosecutors at the SPO decided to dismiss perjury charges linked to the bribery case. Park had exercised his command authority and ordered the SPO to reconsider the case given suspicions of induced false testimony.