Prosecutors probing the alleged dissemination of fake news ahead of last year's presidential race initiated a raid at the residence of a lawyer on the legal committee of the main opposition Democratic Party(DP).

A special team from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office began raiding Song Pyung-soo’s home on Thursday morning.

The lawyer is suspected of committing defamation under the law on information and communication network utilization through involvement in the release of a fake report on President Yoon Suk Yeol in what prosecutors believe was a bid to damage his reputation.

The report was released in March of last year by the head of the leftist media outlet Repoact Heo Jae-hyun.

The state agency suspects that Heo issued a false report eight days prior to the election alleging that Yoon had colluded in an illegal loan scheme while he was a prosecutor in 2011.

In the report, the outlet chief claimed that he had obtained an audio file of a conversation between Choi Jae-kyung, former head of the now-defunct central investigation bureau at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and a cousin of a broker implicated in the scandal.

Song served as a spokesperson on the election campaign committee of DP chair Lee Jae-myung, who ran against Yoon in last year’s presidential race, after which he began working on the DP’s legal committee.