Lee "Prosecutors Unable to Present New Evidence... Want to Show 'Lee Jae-myung in Handcuffs'"

"Why summon twice or thrice... wasting time by dragging it out and reading documents"
"They want to show they are waiting locked up in the detention center"

[Asia Economy Reporters Oh Ju-yeon and Park Jun-i] On the 23rd, Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized the prosecution's excessive investigation against him, saying, "They wanted to show the image of Lee Jae-myung handcuffed or waiting in detention after the warrant review."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On that day, Lee held a press briefing at the National Assembly in the morning and said, "The reason for the summons is not to obtain a confession, but to present evidence to corner me, isn't it?" He added, "(However) there was no new evidence. Even though they say to present evidence that proves guilt, they have not been able to do so."

Lee pointed out, "Going forward, the Yoon Seok-yeol administration will probably do what it wants in this way."

Regarding the prosecution summoning him three times this year alone, he said, "They could have done a written investigation, but they insisted on summoning me. Even if you accept that, why summon me two or three times?" He added, "They probably wanted to show that there is something to summon me this many times."

He criticized, "If they summoned me, there should be a reason for the new summons. But they spent the whole day asking the same questions, dragging out time by asking the meaning of words, reading related documents, and so on."

He also appealed against the unfairness of being accused of 'breach of trust' in the Daejang-dong project.

Lee said, "I ask the people to judge once. Why did Lee Jae-myung pursue 'public-private joint' development instead of private or public development and only recovered 550 billion won? If I had given 100% to the private sector and recovered nothing, would that have been a problem of breach of trust?"

He criticized, "The warrant says that I conspired with the Daejang-dong gang to grant business rights and make money, but if I had granted private development permits as the developers wanted, it would have been neat. However, I promoted public development and tried to recover 100% of the development profits. (In the end) Aren't all the people who benefited from Daejang-dong members of the People Power Party?"

He strongly rebutted, "Did Lee Jae-myung receive money? Apart from stories about people around me being slandered, did I receive any benefits?"