At 14:00 p.m. local time on the 27th, former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison for publishing false facts during the presidential election and violating the Public Service Election Act.
According to South Korea‘s Public Service Election Act, if the elected person is ultimately sentenced to a fine of 1 million won (approximately Rmb4626) or more for election-related crimes, it constitutes an “invalid election.” Since the responsibility for returning presidential election campaign expenses is borne by the party, if Yoon is sentenced to invalid election at the end of this case, his party, the largest opposition National Power Party, will have to return to the Korean Central Election Management Committee about 39.7 billion won (approximately Rmb184 million) in campaign expenses subsidies and candidate guarantee money. Therefore, the verdict in this case not only concerns Yoon‘s personal legal responsibility, but may also have a significant impact on the fiscal and political situation of the National Power Party.
According to the charges of the Korea Special Prosecution Team, when attending a panel meeting as a presidential candidate on December 14, 2021, Yoon Suk Yeol said that he had not introduced a lawyer from the Central Investigation Department of the Korea State Attorney General‘s Office to the former Director of Ryongshan Tax Department, Yoon Yu-jin. Subsequently, when he was interviewed at a public ceremony on January 17, 2022, he said that he had only learned about a certain practitioner of witchcraft through party insiders and had not met with him together with his wife, Kim Jian-hee. The investigation by the Special Prosecution Team believes that both of these statements do not match the facts, and therefore brought a prosecution against him on suspicion of publicizing false facts during the campaign.
The special prosecution team pointed out that Yoon Suk Yeol had actually introduced the relevant lawyer to Yoon Yu-jin, while Chun Seung-pae was introduced to him through Kim Jian-hee, and the two maintained a relationship for more than 10 years. The prosecution believes that the related false statements quelled various controversies surrounding Yoon Suk Yeol during the campaign and had a positive impact on his election campaign, and in the closing statement held last month, it requested the court to sentence Yoon Suk Yeol to 2 years in prison. (Main Station Reporter Zhang Yun)