Ruling party chair calls for probe of prosecution

South Korea's ruling party is increasing pressure on the prosecutors' office, accusing it of fabricating evidence against President Lee Jae Myung and calling for a parliamentary probe into the issue.

Democratic Party of Korea chair Rep. Jung Chung-rae told a press conference Sunday that the ruling bloc would spare no efforts to achieve prosecutorial reform, calling it "a symbolic representation of the Lee administration and the Democratic Party."

The party passed legislation last year to split up the prosecution, due to take effect in September.

Highlighting his party's move to request a parliamentary probe into seven criminal cases concerning Lee and Democratic Party-aligned issues, Jung pledged to uncover wrongdoings by the prosecution.

"In order to counter the fabrication of indictments committed by the prosecution, (the Democratic Party) will pursue a parliamentary probe and a special counsel investigation to completely root out the prosecution's wrongdoing," Jung told reporters.

In a leaked conversation revealed by local media the previous week, a key suspect in a criminal case said that the prosecution was pressing him to testify against Lee, although Lee was innocent.

In response, Lee, who was on a state visit to the Philippines, described the prosecution's alleged attempt to manipulate evidence against him as more evil than perpetrators of felonies such as theft, abduction or homicide.

Lee had been facing five ongoing criminal trials before he was elected president.

In one of the cases, Lee was found guilty by the Supreme Court, though the conviction was not finalized before he was elected. All five trials were paused soon after Lee was inaugurated.

Three of the seven cases the party is targeting for scrutiny are against Lee: two relating to real estate development projects and one on fund transfers to the North.

The others involve to a political funding scandal involving a Lee aide, journalists accused of defaming Yoon, allegations that the Moon administration doctored official statistics, and the alleged cover-up of North Korea's killing of a South Korean fisheries official.

Jung referred to Yoon as the leader of an authoritarian regime who used the prosecutors' office to silence his political opponents as the former prosecutor general.

"We will also seek to have the indictments dropped," added Jung, in the second press conference since he chaired the ruling party in August.

Jung's press conference came as the local elections are about three months away. Jung said he would go all out to win, but did not clarify what would constitute a victory from the ruling party's point of view.

Jung added that he would use his power to nominate candidates for by-elections for National Assembly lawmakers, which coincide with the local election. But added he would not do so for any of the candidates running in local elections.