[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] A former executive of Value Invest Korea (VIK), who worked with former VIK CEO Lee Cheol, testified that he received a letter from former Channel A reporter Lee Dong-jae asking him to report corruption involving political and social figures such as Yoo Si-min, chairman of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, but ignored it.
The former VIK executive, Mr. Shin, appeared as a witness on the 23rd at the Seoul Central District Court before Presiding Judge Park Jin-hwan of Criminal Division 1 in the continuation trial of former reporter Lee’s attempted coercion case. He testified, "I received a letter once from former reporter Lee asking me to report misconduct within the ruling party," adding, "The letter mentioned that the SillaJen case could escalate further and that if I spoke well, it could be resolved in a favorable way." However, he said, "I thought it was meaningless and threw it away immediately."
In response to the prosecution’s question about whether the letter contained specific mentions of prosecution officials, Shin said, "No. It implied that political and social figures like Yoo Si-min were connected to SillaJen, but I thought it was baseless." He further explained, "I also wondered if the SillaJen case was a frame set up by the prosecution and political circles, but I did not think any ruling party figures I knew were involved or that anything wrong had happened," and added, "I considered former reporter Lee’s actions as a mere incident occurring in the course of journalists doing their work."
Earlier, the prosecution charged former reporter Lee with attempted coercion, alleging that he sent five letters to former CEO Lee, threatening him with possible investigations into his family and demanding that he disclose corruption involving political figures such as Yoo Si-min, chairman of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation. At the time of indictment, the prosecution excluded any conspiracy with Prosecutor General Han Dong-hoon from the charges, stating that further investigation was needed.
Meanwhile, the so-called "Whistleblower X," Mr. Ji, who first reported this case to the media, refused to testify again on this day and did not appear in court. Previously, Mr. Ji had refused to testify and failed to appear for two summonses until investigations into Prosecutor General Han Dong-hoon began.
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