Yoo Seung-min: "My Daughter's Faculty Hiring Was Fair... Political Probe Meant to Humiliate Me"

Police refer four, including former lawmaker Yoo, to prosecutors on obstruction charges
Yoo: "I will prove my innocence during the indictment and trial proceedings"

Former lawmaker Yoo Seung-min criticized his referral to the prosecution on October 16 on suspicion of obstruction of business related to allegations that his daughter, Yoo Dam, a professor at Incheon National University, received preferential treatment in her appointment. He called it "a politically motivated investigation and audit carried out to humiliate and persecute me."

In a social media post that day, Yoo said, "I have never committed obstruction of business in connection with the appointment of my daughter, Yoo Dam, as a full-time faculty member in the Department of International Trade at Incheon National University. The hiring process was fair and legitimate."

Former People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Seung-min. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung

He claimed, "For the past year, the police and the Board of Audit and Inspection have subjected dozens of Incheon National University officials to exhaustive investigations. During the last parliamentary audit, they even enlisted the Ministry of Education to investigate allegations that research papers by Korea University were plagiarized, but Korea University's Ethics Committee concluded that there was no problem."

He continued, "The police and the Board of Audit and Inspection are determined to fabricate a crime that does not exist and pin it on me. I will reveal the truth during the prosecution and trial proceedings and prove my innocence."

He added, "Even if the police are made tools of authoritarian rule and used to suppress political opponents, they cannot fabricate crimes that do not exist. Political investigations will come back like a boomerang and inevitably become their own comeuppance."

Earlier that morning, police booked Yoo, Incheon National University President Lee In-jae, and two others without detention on suspicion of obstruction of business and referred them to the prosecution. They are suspected of obstructing the university's hiring process when Professor Yoo was appointed to the Department of International Trade at Incheon National University's College of Global Business and Economics in the second semester of last year.

Police also applied charges of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act against President Lee and one other Incheon National University professor. However, reports say no evidence of money or other benefits changing hands was found.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.