A Seoul court Wednesday turned down the arrest warrant requests for two former top aides from the Moon Jae-in and previous Lee Myung-bak governments accused of involvement in separate bribery and election-meddling scandals.
The Seoul Central District Court again refused to issue the writ for Jun Byung-hun, former senior secretary for political affairs to President Moon Jae-in, after it turned down the first request last month.
The court said that the bribery and embezzlement charges laid against him are disputable and he seems to be at low risk of fleeing or destroying evidence given the evidence collected so far.
Jun is accused of inducing two local home shopping channels to donate 480 million won ($440,000) between 2013 and 2015 to the Korea e-Sports Association, which was under his control.
Prosecutors suspect the money was given in exchange for favors involving the renewal of their broadcasting license. Jun was at the time a three-term lawmaker belonging to the parliamentary committee in charge of related policies.
He is also accused of receiving up to 8 million won worth of gift vouchers from Lotte. Jun resigned as an aide to Moon over the scandal but flatly denied wrongdoing.
This file photo shows Jun Byung-hun, former senior secretary to President Moon Jae-in, appearing at the prosecution`s office on Dec. 13, 2017. (Yonhap)
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