Han Chan-sik Named New Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs; Seong Gihong Appointed Senior Secretary for Public Relations

[Anchor]

President Lee Jae-myung has appointed three new senior presidential secretaries and two deputy directors of the National Security Office. Han Chan-sik, a former prosecutor who led investigations into figures from the Moon Jae-in administration, has been named the Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs. While concerns have been raised by the pan-ruling party, the presidential office has drawn a line, asserting that he is the right person for the job.

Reporter Jeong Yunsik has the story.

[Reporter]

A former prosecutor has been appointed as the third Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs in the Lee Jae-myung administration.

Han Chan-sik, the newly appointed Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs and a lawyer at Kim & Chang, was born in Seoul in 1968 and is a graduate of the 21st Judicial Research and Training Institute.

After becoming a prosecutor in 1992, he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office and the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office.

[Kang Hoon-sik / Chief of Staff to the President: Senior Secretary Han is a legal expert who has balanced the strictness of law enforcement with a sensitivity to human rights while serving as the Director of the Human Rights Bureau at the Ministry of Justice and in leadership positions at various district prosecutors' offices.]

During his tenure as Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office in 2019, he led the investigation into the "Ministry of Environment blacklist allegations" targeting the Moon Jae-in administration, which resulted in the indictment of former Environment Minister Kim Eun-kyung and others.

He was not promoted to the rank of High Prosecutor thereafter, and he left the prosecution service after Yoon Suk-yeol, his junior at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, was appointed Prosecutor General.

The new Senior Secretary for Public Relations and Communication will be filled by a former media company president.

Seong Gihong, the former president of Yonhap News, was born in Gyeongnam in 1968. He began his career as a reporter at Yonhap News in 1992 and served as the political news editor and news director.

The presidential office assessed that Seong, a journalist with 30 years of experience, possesses both a keen sense for the field and the balance and judgment required of a news director.

Kim Gyeong-ja, the new Senior Secretary for Social Affairs, is a pharmacist-turned-labor activist.

She began her path in the labor movement in 1995 as the union leader at Inha Hospital and served as the Senior Deputy Chair of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) for three years starting in 2017.

Kang Geon-jak, a retired three-star general and member of the Future Defense Strategy Committee, has been appointed as the First Deputy Director of the National Security Office, while Song Ki-ho, the current Secretary to the President for Economic Security who served as the Chief of the Situation Room during the Lee Jae-myung administration, has been promoted to Third Deputy Director.

(Reported by Jeong Yunsik | Video by Yoon Hyung | Video Editing by Kim Jin-won | Graphics by Choi Jae-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.