Prosecutors on Friday demanded a two-year jail sentence for opposition chief Lee Jae-myung on prices of constructing false statements in the course of the earlier presidential election, a sentence that, if finalized, would bar him from operating within the subsequent election.
Lee, chair of the primary opposition Democratic Social gathering of Korea (DPK), was indicted in September 2022 on prices of mendacity in the course of the presidential marketing campaign a few high-profile land growth undertaking pursued by the Seongnam metropolis authorities, south of Seoul, throughout his time period as mayor.
Through the closing listening to on the Seoul Central District Court docket, prosecutors demanded a two-year jail time period for Lee, accusing him of “repeatedly mendacity to the general public to be able to be elected as president.”
The courtroom is anticipated to ship a verdict someday subsequent month.
A lawmaker who receives a finalized sentence of a 1 million-won ($749.85) high quality or extra for violating the Public Official Election Act by making false statements throughout an election robotically loses their parliamentary seat and is barred from operating in official elections for the subsequent 5 years.
After arriving on the courtroom for the listening to, Lee claimed that prosecutors fabricated the costs towards him.
“All these affairs will go down in historical past, and the general public will determine for themselves,” Lee instructed reporters, surrounded by a bunch of DPK lawmakers who got here to help him on the listening to, with supporters chanting his identify.
“The courtroom, the final bastion of human rights and democracy, will appropriately decide the reality of the case and attain a simply conclusion,” Lee stated.
The land growth undertaking was on the heart of a scandal that plagued Lee in the course of the presidential election, with allegations that Seongnam granted favors to a personal developer to safe the profitable condo growth within the metropolis’s Daejang-dong district and reap a windfall.
Prosecutors charged Lee with making false remarks in violation of the Public Official Election Act for stating throughout a tv interview in December 2021 that he didn’t know Kim Moon-ki, who was then a senior growth official at Seongnam Improvement Corp, the town’s growth company, whereas he was mayor.
Kim, a key determine within the scandal, was discovered lifeless at his workplace whereas underneath investigation.
The DPK chief can also be charged with mendacity about being verbally threatened by the land ministry to grant an administrative land allow for a separate growth undertaking in Seongnam’s Baekhyeon-dong district, throughout a parliamentary session in October 2021.
Lee ran unsuccessfully towards President Yoon Suk Yeol within the March 2022 presidential election. He’s broadly anticipated to run once more within the subsequent election.
The opposition chief has persistently denied the costs, accusing prosecutors of fabricating politically motivated investigations.
This case is anticipated to be the primary courtroom ruling among the many seven instances by which Lee is standing trial, together with bribery and different prices associated to the event scandal. (Yonhap)