Lee Jae-myung has another criminal trial postponed

The Seoul High Court said Monday that it had postponed the first formal hearing in a trial in which Lee Jae-myung faces subornation of perjury charges, which was scheduled to be held on May 20, until after the June 3 presidential election.

The court’s announcement can be seen as an additional effort to present Lee — who is a candidate in the election — with equal opportunities to campaign. The announcement follows previous decisions to delay two other criminal trials — one a retrial on charges of election law violations and another related to alleged breach of trust charges over Baekyeon-dong and Daejang-dong development projects in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province — until after the presidential election.

“The court changed the date for the subornation of perjury trial to be scheduled later as the defendant officially registered as a presidential candidate over the past weekend,” the Seoul High Court said, without giving a new date for the hearing.

Lee’s subornation of perjury case is tied to a 2004 conviction for impersonating a prosecutor, in which he collaborated with a TV news producer to investigate Kim Byung-ryang, who was then mayor of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, over a real estate corruption scandal. Lee was ultimately fined 1.5 million won ($1,070) for his role.

However, while campaigning for governor of Gyeonggi Province in 2018, Lee said the 2004 conviction was based on false accusations.

This 2018 statement by Lee led the prosecution to charge him with making an alleged false statement during the 2018 election, though he was ultimately was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2020.

In the postponed subornation of perjury case, prosecutors have accused Lee of suborning or pressuring Kim Jin-seong, a secretary to former Seongnam Mayor Kim, via phone to give false testimony in his favor during the 2019 trial over the alleged false statement, arguing that Kim’s testimony played a key role in Lee’s 2020 Supreme Court acquittal.

Though the former Democratic Party of Korea leader was acquitted of subornation of perjury charges in November last year, prosecutors filed an appeal to a higher court.

After pretrial hearings on March 11 and April 1, the subornation of perjury trial had been set to open on May 20.

The court's decision allows Lee to start officially campaigning for the June 3 presidential election without any imminent orders to appear in court.

Lee faces two more trials: one on charges of alleged involvement in unauthorized money transfers to North Korea and one on allegedly embezzling public funds during his time as the governor of Gyeonggi Province, at the Suwon District Court. But the pretrial hearings of these two trials are yet to be concluded.

Defendants are not obligated to attend pretrial hearings, as preparatory hearings only discuss how a trial is to proceed.

Meanwhile, Kim Hye-kyung -- the wife of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate who was indicted for violating the Public Official Election Act -- was penalized with a fine following an appellate trial on Monday.

The Suwon High Court dismissed both the defendant's and the prosecution’s appeals and upheld the original verdict involving Kim’s alleged illegal donations under the act.

Kim was indicted after providing meals worth 104,000 won to the wives of three former and current lawmakers, as well as her secretary and a driver, at a restaurant in August 2021, through her secretary using a Gyeonggi Provincial Office corporate card, shortly after Lee declared his presidential bid in the previous election.

The court judged that the gathering had been arranged for the defendant to meet influential politicians to support her husband. It found that this was beneficial to Kim.

“Considering that the attendees seemed to expect the defendant would pay for the meal, the court finds that the defendant knowingly had her secretary pay for the meals,” the judge of the Suwon High Court said Monday.

The court fined Kim 1.5 million won. Kim's attorney also announced they plan to appeal the decision, Monday.