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DP chief Lee's bribery trial set to resume on April 23 following four-month halt

Published: 31 Mar. 2025, 17:02

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung attends a supreme council meeting held at the DP's tent headquarters in front of Gwanghwamun in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 31. [YONHAP]

The trial of Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung, who faces charges of third-party bribery in connection with an alleged remittance to North Korea by Ssangbangwool Group, will resume on April 23, nearly four months after proceedings were halted.

The Suwon District Court’s Criminal Division has scheduled a pretrial hearing for 11:30 a.m. on April 23. The case had been on hold since December 2023, when Lee's legal team filed a motion to recuse the presiding judge.

The April hearing will also cover the cases of Lee Hwa-young, former deputy governor of Gyeonggi and a co-defendant in the case, as well as Kim Seong-tae, former chairman of Ssangbangwool Group, who has been indicted for bribery.

The upcoming session is a pretrial conference to organize both sides’ positions and procedural plans before the formal trial begins. Lee Jae-myung is not required to attend and is not expected to be present.

Lee Jae-myung was indicted in June 2023 alongside Lee Hwa-young on allegations that he accepted an $8 million remittance to North Korea from Ssangbangwool Group on behalf of a third party while serving as Gyeonggi governor.

In December, his defense team requested the recusal of then-presiding Judge Shin Jin-woo, arguing that the judge had previously handed down a guilty verdict to Lee Hwa-young in a related case and could be biased.

In that earlier ruling, delivered in October 2022, the court sentenced Lee Hwa-young to nine and a half years in prison for violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act in connection to the same North Korea remittance scandal.

The motion to recuse was ultimately dismissed last month by the Suwon District Court’s Criminal Division 13, which found the request baseless due to recent personnel changes resulting in a different panel of judges handling the case.

The ruling was sent to Lee Jae-myung's legal team within a few days, but Lee Jae-myung himself did not receive it until March 28, after eight delivery attempts failed due to his absence from the listed address. His attorneys formally updated his delivery address on March 26, resolving a delay that had drawn criticism for stalling the legal process.

With the procedural issues now resolved, the case will proceed next month as the court reopens hearings on one of the most politically sensitive trials involving a sitting opposition leader.

BY CHOI MO-RAN [[email protected]]