SEOUL, South Korea — On Monday, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was found not guilty of charges related to allegedly persuading a witness to provide false testimony aimed at minimizing his previous criminal record. This decision offered him a momentary respite from ongoing legal issues that jeopardize his political aspirations.
After the verdict, Lee expressed gratitude towards the judge at the Seoul Central District Court for restoring “truth and justice.” Meanwhile, the prosecution has yet to announce whether it plans to appeal the decision.
Earlier this month, the same court handed Lee a suspended prison sentence for breaching election laws by making false public statements during his 2022 presidential campaign, which he narrowly lost to the conservative candidate Yoon Suk Yeol.
If that conviction remains, Lee would not only lose his position as alawmaker but also be prevented from participating in the upcoming presidential election, which polls indicate he is currently favored to win. However, Lee is embroiled in five ongoing trials concerning allegations of corruption and other offenses, and he is likely to contest any guilty ruling. The timeline for the Supreme Court’s decisions on these matters remains uncertain, especially with the next vote slated for March 2027.
The ruling on Monday specifically assessed whether Lee had exerted pressure on a former employee from Seongnam city to deliver false evidence in a court case from 2019. This testimony aimed to lessen the impact of Lee’s 2002 conviction, linked to his actions as a lawyer who assisted a KBS television journalist in posing as a prosecutor in order to secure an interview with the then-Seongnam Mayor, Kim Byung-ryang, who was embroiled in corruption allegations related to housing development.
Lee’s political journey took him to the mayoralty of Seongnam in 2010, a position he maintained until 2018. During his 2018 gubernatorial campaign for Gyeonggi province, he asserted that he had been falsely accused, which led to prosecutors pursuing charges against him for election law violations due to the allegedly deceptive statements he made. He was acquitted in 2019, partly reliant on the testimony of the Seongnam city employee, who had previously served as Kim’s secretary and testified that the former mayor contemplated not pursuing charges against the journalist to implicate Lee further.
In October of last year, prosecutors charged Lee with instigating perjury, citing phone call records they claimed demonstrated his efforts to convince the Seongnam city employee to assert in court that he had been set up. However, upon delivering its verdict, the court concluded that the evidence provided by the prosecution was inadequate to establish that Lee had the intention to incite perjury.