On the 25th, the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Department 33 (Chief Judge Kim Dong-hyun) said, "The evidence submitted by the prosecution alone is not enough to say that Lee intended to give perjury to Kim Jin-sung, who was a secretary to the late former Seongnam Mayor Kim Byung-ryang."
Representative Lee is accused of teaching perjury, including false testimony, to Kim during a trial on charges of publicizing false information under the Public Official Election Act. CEO Lee was fined 1.5 million won by the Supreme Court in 2002 after being accused of impersonating a prosecutor by calling Seongnam Mayor Kim Byung-ryang while covering the "Bundang Baekgung Park View Suspicion" with KBS PD Choi Chul-ho. Later, he was indicted on charges of publicizing false information in 2018 when he said, "I never impersonated and was framed" in connection with the "prosecutor impersonation case." The trial was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2020.
The court said that there was no intention of the perjury teacher as representative Lee did not request testimony on the part that Kim said he did not know well or that he did not remember. When asked if there was a promise at the time that "mayor Kim and KBS should drop the charges against PD Choi and drive CEO Lee to be the main culprit of the prosecutor impersonation case," Kim said, "I don't know," and the fact that CEO Lee did not ask for further testimony was the basis for the acquittal.
The court said, "Representative Lee did not ask for testimony on the 'promise to cancel the complaint' that Kim said he did not know and 'details on consultations between Mayor Kim and KBS,'" adding, "He also asked for testimony only on matters that Kim remembered or sympathized with, at least not clearly denied, excluding matters that Kim did not know or deny."
The first trial also acknowledged some of Lee's teacher activities, but did not acknowledge the perjury teacher's intention on the grounds that there was no direct evidence that Lee intervened in Kim's court testimony.
Kim's answer to Lee's lawyer's question, "Did you hear that Mayor Kim was in talks with a high-ranking KBS official at the time?" is perjury, and Lee's teaching behavior is also recognized, but there is no direct evidence to admit that Lee intervened until Kim testified in court. "Considering that Lee and Kim did not seem to have decided whether Kim would testify or what he would testify at the time of the call, it is difficult to say that Lee could have foreseen that Kim would perjure this part," the court said. "So, it cannot be said that Lee had Jung Beom's intention to perjure Kim."
Some in the legal community analyzed that it was an "unusual ruling" when he was acquitted in a trial on a perjury teacher charge, which was initially considered the "biggest gateway to Lee's judicial risk." Earlier, opinions were suggested in the legal community that Kim admitted his perjury during the trial and that there were many aggravating factors as the 30-minute transcript of the call remained as evidence. Based on this, the prosecution asked CEO Lee for three years in prison, the maximum sentence related to perjury teacher charges, at a final trial in September.
Perjury teachers are one of the topics that always cause controversy in the legal profession because they are closely linked to the defendant's right to defend himself. In this regard, the court is believed to have acquitted the court with a focus on guaranteeing the right to defend. A senior judge at the Financial District Court said, "The judgment that the act of issuing a statement does not correspond to perjury can be used as a guideline for preliminary interviews between witnesses and lawyers, so opinions will be divided legally."
Meanwhile, the prosecution immediately appealed after the first trial ended that day. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said, "It is hard to understand that Kim Jin-sung confessed to falsely testifying at the request of Lee Jae-myung, and the court found Kim guilty of perjury due to Lee's teacher's actions, but acquitted Lee because he did not intend to commit perjury."
[Reporter Park Min Gi / Reporter Kang Min Woo]
