Hwang Woo-suk, Kim Sun-jong to be indicted for illegal ova procurment

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said on April 14 that it would indict the two stem cell researchers (Hwang Woo-suk, Kim Sun-jong) for illegally procuring ova for experiments after the bioethics law went into effect in January 2005.

Curiously, a footnote in the now-retracted 2005 paper in Science had mentioned how the researchers had complied with the law. One wonders if a false assertion of legal compliance, BY ITSELF, might have been grounds for retraction of the paper, either for VIOLATING THE LAW or for LYING TO THE JOURNAL.

Prosecutors are contemplating bringing charges for the false scientific work which was presented:

The prosecution said that it is reviewing the possibility of punishing them on charges of the manipulation of the papers because there is no such a precedent.

It said that it will finally decide whether it is possible to apply charges of obstruction of duty to the scientists after reflecting opinions from prosecutors and scholars.

Prosecutors are also tracking 24.6 billion won which was already used out of 36.9 billion won in a research fund raised through donations to confirm whether or not Hwang personally used the money.