Prosecutors raided a Seoul police station Wednesday as part of their widening investigation into allegations that a former aide to President Park Geun-hye intervened in state affairs without holding an official government position.
The investigation came after the local daily Segye Times reported Friday that Jeong Yun-hoe met with presidential officials to oust Kim Ki-choon, the current chief of staff to Park, citing an internal document of Cheong Wa Dae dated Jan. 6.
Jeong, who served as the president's chief of staff when she was a lawmaker, holds no official title in the Park administration, but regularly met with incumbent presidential secretaries and received briefings from them, according to the report.
The presidential office filed a libel suit against the reporters and asked the prosecution to look into whether the author of the internal report violated the law on the management of public records.
A team of investigators from the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office obtained documents from the Dobong Police Station where a police officer who is suspected to have drawn up and leaked the document is currently employed.
The investigators also swooped down on the residence of the officer, Park Kwan-cheon, and the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on suspicion that the document was leaked from one of the agency's departments.
Park, meanwhile, is scheduled to appear before prosecutors to face questioning on Thursday. He was banned from leaving the country after the probe began.
Park earlier claimed that he had not leaked the document but refused to comment on the document's author.
Jeong, who is at the center of the scandal, has denied the allegation, claiming that the internal document from Cheong Wa Dae is fake.
He also filed a separate libel suit against the Segye Times, claiming that the report had defamed his honor.
The complaint was filed with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Thursday.
The prosecution office is currently looking into another suit filed by Jeong against a reporter of monthly news magazine Sisa Journal for an article alleging that he had hired someone to follow Park's younger brother Ji-man. (Yonhap)
