`Prosecutor alleged to have helped bro-in-law get off light`

The Supreme Prosecutors` Office on Tuesday began tracing bank records of a Seoul prosecutor who allegedly helped his attorney who is also his brother-in-law avoid prison time in a 2010 criminal case involving six doctors.

Both the prosecutor and his relative will be summoned for questioning Wednesday on if they orchestrated a scheme and if the latter sent money to the former.

The office is also examining if the prosecutor helped the lawyer get off light in a 2010 case, which the prosecutor indicted him and six plastic surgeons and obstetricians for illegally administering the anesthetic propofol. The lawyer was fined but the doctors all got prison sentences. The prosecutor said in his defense, "The lawyer was cooperative in the investigation and helped the probe go forward."

In other cases, Choi Jae-kyung, the head of the central investigation department of the Supreme Prosecutors` Office, was cleared in a corruption case. Choi had advised Kim Gwang-jun, a prosecutor at the Seoul High Court and Seoul District Court who was arrested on a bribery charge. The department`s director Lee Jun-ho said, "We considered how Choi sent text messages to Kim and concluded that the messages were not instigative or confidential."

In addition, a prosecutor who admitted to having sex with a woman charged with theft has been fired. The decision to terminate will go to the Justice Ministry disciplinary committee for the final say after receiving approval from the acting prosecutor-general.

On Yoon Dae-hae, a prosecutor of the Seoul Southern District Court who mistakenly sent a message to a reporter that prosecutorial reform was progressing as scheduled, the prosecution office`s disciplinary action committee meted out lenient punishment given Yoon`s offer to resign last Wednesday.

ceric@donga.com