Lee Jae-myung’s never-ending judicial risks

Jung Hyo-sik
The author is the social news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.

A dark cloud of judicial risks surrounding an allegation of sending illegal money to North Korea is gathering over Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung. The massive corruption scandal over the Daejang-dong development project allegedly involving Lee could just be the trailer to the main story of the suspicious remittance to North Korea.

The payment for North Korea has far stronger political ramifications than the Daejang-dong scandal, which prosecutors have defined as a local corruption case. The DP submitted a special motion to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the prosecution’s “manipulation of the payment case.” The majority party also threatened to impeach prosecutors who dealt with the case.

If the DP leader is indicted on charges of sending illegal money to the North, he will stand four trials simultaneously, including his alleged violation of the election law and subornation of perjury.

The basic structure of the North Korea payment scandal is relatively simpler than the Daejang-dong case, which involved a complex web of Lee’s aides and private contractors. According to the Suwon District Court’s verdict against former Vice Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Hwa-young last Friday, the DP leader, who was Gyeonggi governor at the time, ordered his deputy to push for a project to arrange his visit to North Korea after he was excluded from the special delegation for the third inter-Korean summit for President Moon Jae-in in September 2018.

The vice governor visited North Korea in October 2018, met with Kim Song-hye, a senior official of the North’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, and promised that Gyeonggi would offer $5 million in financial support for a smart farm project in Hwanghae Province.

But the vice governor later learned that the provincial government’s promised aid of $5 million to North Korea was impossible due to the United Nations Security Council sanctions. So he asked former Ssangbangwool (SBW) Group Chair Kim Sung-tae, a businessman he had a close relationship with, to send the money instead. Kim remitted the sum first. After North Korea demanded another $3 million to prepare for a visit by the Gyeonggi governor, Kim made the payment to Song Myong-chol, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, and Ri Ho-nam, an agent from the North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, according to the verdict.

Lee Jae-myung is accused of having conspired with Lee Hwa-young to pay $8 million in bribes to the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a policy arm of the North’s Workers’ Party. He is also suspected of smuggling foreign currency out of the country without a customs declaration and paying it to the Workers’ Party without the permission of the Bank of Korea governor, which is a violation of the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act.

The only issue with the suspicious remittance is whether the prosecution can prove that Lee Jae-myung conspired with his deputy after creating the new post of vice governor for peace, the first of its kind for a regional government.

The Suwon District Court handed down a heavy punishment of nine years and six months in jail to Lee Hwa-young. The court clearly acknowledged the fact that Kim, the SBW chairman, had paid $8 million to North Korea on behalf of the provincial government.

But during the trial, Lee Hwa-young denied his previous statements to the prosecution that he had made two briefings to Lee Jae-myung in July and December 2019. He had reportedly told his boss that “Kim will handle the cost of your visit to North Korea as a part of his business because he is doing a business with the North” and that “your visit will be possible early next year as things are going well.” This denial can be a factor in Lee Jae-myung’s trial.

But the court acknowledged the credibility of Kim’s statements. “Kim had asked Lee Hwa-young multiple times to make sure that then-Gyeonggi Governor [Lee Jae-myung] was briefed that he had paid the smart farm expense on behalf of the province,” the bench said. “Whether or not Lee Hwa-young had actually briefed the governor is irrelevant to this case, but it is appropriate to say that it was the motivation of Kim’s action to pay the money to North Korea.”

There was also an allegation that Lee Jae-myung had received a briefing call from Lee Hwa-young, who attended the cooperation agreement signing event between SBW Group and North Korea in Shenyang, China, in January 2019. After the phone call, Lee Jae-myung reportedly talked to Kim in person at that time and said, “Thank you, Chairman Kim. I appreciate your great work.”

The biggest judicial risk for the DP leader is not the specific charges but the length of the trial. His eligibility to run for president depends on whether the Supreme Court will make rulings before the election or not.

For the Daejang-dong case, Lee has been standing trial for 447 days since March 22, 2023. Private developers that prosecuted on Nov. 1, 2021 for a breach of trust in the same case have been undergoing trials for 952 days as of June 10. The duration of their trials are far longer than the average period of a criminal trial.

The judicial risks for the country are all about judicial delays. Lee Jae-myung’s judicial risk has been dragging for so long that it has triggered a controversy over Article 84 of the Constitution, which stipulates presidential immunity from prosecution while in office.

At this rate, we may end up extending presidential immunity to a right to suspend criminal trials in which the president was prosecuted before the election.