Yeo: "Reenactment of 'Jo Bong-am Judicial Murder'... We Will Overwhelmingly Reject the Warrant"

Emphasis on 'Rejection' of Lee's Arrest Consent Proposal at Tomorrow's Plenary Session
Party Charter Article 80 "Not Applicable to Opposition Suppression"

On the eve of the National Assembly vote on the arrest consent bill for Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, the party stated, "We will firmly oppose the barbarism of the prosecutor dictatorship regime and judicial hunting, and overwhelmingly reject the prosecution's political warrant."

At a National Assembly press briefing on the 26th, Cho Jeong-sik, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party, said, "The prosecution is obsessed not with proving criminal charges but with slapping a criminal image, submitting an absurd arrest consent bill to the National Assembly based on a 'take it or leave it' approach."

He added, "The prosecutor dictatorship is a more vicious 'new dictatorship' than the military dictatorships of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. The Yoon Seok-yeol administration is committing violence through prosecutorial investigative and indictment powers. Ruthless judicial hunting has become routine for those who do not obey the prosecutor dictatorship."

He further claimed, "The killing of Kim Dae-jung under the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan dictatorships and the judicial murder of Jo Bong-am by Rhee Syngman are being reenacted in the 21st century."

Regarding the contents of the prosecution's detention warrant, he pointed out, "This is a clear targeted investigation aimed at a person rather than the case. There is no new evidence, only hearsay and unsubstantiated claims using non-legal expressions like 'administrative corruption,' which are utterly flimsy."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Targeting allegations such as stock manipulation involving First Lady Kim Keon-hee, he said, "In the midst of a 'public security storm' of indiscriminate investigations, raids, and warrant requests, only the corruption of Manager Kim (Kim Ki-hyun, his wife, and mother-in-law) and Cheonggong remain untouched." He emphasized, "The Democratic Party will definitely push through the two special investigations on Kim Keon-hee and Daejang-dong, and will surely uncover the truth behind Manager Kim's corruption."

Kim Seong-hwan, Chairman of the Policy Committee, who joined the press briefing, said, "Tomorrow's arrest consent bill will be overwhelmingly rejected, but the public is expected to be confused again by the Ssangbangwool Group's North Korea remittance case." He criticized, "Despite the fact that the core of the Daejang-dong case involves the prosecutor group and the 5 billion won club, they continue to fabricate cases worse than third-rate novels, falsely blaming Leader Lee as if he is the problem."

He continued, "Does it make sense to give a bribe of 6 billion won (5 million dollars) for an 800 million won Gyeonggi-do smart farm project? At that time, Leader Lee, who had received guilty verdicts up to the second trial and was struggling to maintain his position as governor of Gyeonggi-do, how does it make sense that Ssangbangwool Group Chairman Kim Seong-tae would take such a risk to pay 5 million dollars?"

After the press conference, in a back briefing, Secretary-General Cho responded to the question of whether Article 80 of the party constitution, which suspends the duties of party officials indicted for corruption-related charges, would apply to Leader Lee, saying, "This is political oppression and suppression of the opposition for the purpose of eliminating political rivals, so it does not fall under the scope of Article 80, Paragraph 3 of the party constitution. There is no room for controversy." He added, "After tomorrow's rejection of the arrest consent bill, we will consider various options regarding the party's future actions."

Regarding the application of the rule to Democratic Party lawmakers Ki Dong-min and Lee Soo-jin, who were indicted on the 23rd for illegal political funding charges, he said, "Those lawmakers maintain that the facts are completely different," and added, "We will comprehensively consider the facts and whether this is political oppression."