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By Kim Jae-won
Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook suddenly offered to resign Friday afternoon.
Chae's announcement came almost immediately after the Justice Ministry declared its intentions to investigate the top prosecutor over reports that he has an 11-year-old illegitimate son.
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| Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook walks out of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, Friday, after offering to resign over an allegation that he has an 11-year-old son born to a mistress. Yonhap |
Earlier Chae issued a statement.
"I want to make it clear once again that the reports are groundless," Chae said in a statement. The vernacular conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper first reported that Chae had a lovechild on Sept. 6, which Chae denied.
The ministry's investigation into the incumbent prosecutor general is unprecedented and was announced after President Park Geun-hye returned from visiting Russia and Vietnam earlier this week.
"I hope I am the last person who resigns due to baseless allegations," Chae continued through Koo Bon-seon, chief spokesman of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. Chae was in office for five months after he was appointed in April.
However, he didn't say whether he would sue the daily for a correction and whether he would take a DNA test to disprove the reports.
Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said that the probe was aimed at preventing the prosecution from losing public trust in its essential task of ensuring law and order in society.
The ministry sent a mobile alert to beat reporters at 1:30 p.m., using the same procedure as for unscheduled announcements or briefings. Some reports say that Chae was not notified in advance of the ministry's probe plan.
The Chosun Ilbo claimed that Chae fathered an illegitimate son in 2002 with a bar owner he met in 1999 in Busan.
"The minister ordered an independent inspector to find out the truth about the case and report the results to him. We need to stabilize the prosecutors' office by uncovering the truth as soon as possible," the minister was quoted as saying.
Chae is said to be at odds with the current administration over how to deal with allegations that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) illegally intervened in last year's presidential election.
Chae tried to arrest ex-NIS chief Won Sei-hoon without success despite opposition from the ministry.
Won is suspected of mobilizing agents to prevent Rep. Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic Party, then, the party's presidential candidate, becoming elected by posting negative information about him online.
After President Park won the election, she denied having any help from the NIS during her campaign.
The Chosun Ilbo reported that Chae, who is married with one daughter, had a son out of wedlock who attended a private elementary school in Seoul before departing for the United States in late August.
Days after these allegations emerged, the boy's mother on Tuesday denied the reports and claimed that she used the influential official's name to protect her son from neighbors who might discriminate against him for being the child of a single mom.
The 54-year-old woman — only identified by her surname Lim — made the claim in a letter sent to the Chosun Ilbo and the liberal daily vernacular, Hankyoreh.
Lim said she came to know the chief prosecutor when he visited a bar she owned in the southern port city of Busan. Chae was serving as a low-level prosecutor in the same city at that time.
They have met several times since then, but she claims their relationship amounted to nothing more than a friendship between a bar owner and a regular customer.
