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The United New Democratic Party came up against a brick wall in the shape of the Grand National Party in the National Assembly on Monday over a motion to impeach three senior prosecutors. The three were part of a team that cleared GNP presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak of charges in a stock scam last week. The UNDP refuses to accept the findings and submitted the impeachment bill in the name of all its 141 lawmakers at the National Assembly on Monday, the first-ever impeachment bill against rank-and-file prosecutors as opposed to the prosecutor general.
The motion targets Senior Prosecutor Kim Hong-il and two others at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, who the UNDP claims in the bill failed to satisfactorily probe the GNP candidate¡¯s ownership of land in southern Seoul, the defunct investment firm BBK and the auto parts firm DAS that was heavily invested in it. The bill accuses them of forcing a deal on Kim Kyung-joon, the indicted key suspect in the stock fraud, to protect Lee, allegedly because they feared for their future if Lee is elected. UNDP presidential candidate Chung Dong-young at a campaign rally in Chuncheon vowed to ¡°make the senior prosecutors resign.¡±
But the UNDP¡¯s plan to deal with the bill in the parliamentary plenary session on Monday was blocked by GNP opposition. At a meeting of the parliamentary judiciary committee, it also tried to pass a bill tasking a special prosecutor with looking into the BBK scandal, but the attempt was again blocked by the GNP. The UNDP will try again on Tuesday, but GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo pledged to oppose the bills until the presidential election is over, calling them anti-democratic, anti-legal and ¡°political terrorism¡± against the prosecution. Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said Tuesday impeachment of prosecutors demands ¡°clear legal reasons, but it is uncertain if the UNDP has clear grounds for trying to impeach them.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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