On the afternoon of the 27th, members of the National Assembly are watching the vote on the arrest consent bill for Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, held at the plenary session. Earlier, on the 16th, the prosecution requested an arrest warrant for Lee regarding allegations of preferential treatment in the development of Wirye New Town and Daejang-dong, as well as suspicions related to donations to Seongnam FC. The court sent a request for arrest consent to the prosecution the following day. [Image source=Yonhap News]
After the arrest motion against Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, was rejected in the National Assembly on the 27th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office expressed regret, stating, "Despite sufficient grounds for detention considering the seriousness of the crime and the risk of evidence tampering, the rejection of the arrest motion by the National Assembly has made it impossible for the court's detention warrant hearing procedure to proceed."
They added, "Going forward, the prosecution will conduct a thorough investigation into the matter, including supplementary investigations to clarify the facts of the case and strict investigations into related issues."
On the same day, in the plenary session of the National Assembly, out of 299 members, 297 participated in the vote on the arrest motion against Lee. The results were 139 in favor, 138 against, 11 invalid votes, and 9 abstentions, resulting in the motion's rejection. During the counting process, the vote counting committee's differing interpretations of the invalid votes caused the counting to be delayed by more than an hour.
Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung is making a personal statement regarding his arrest consent bill at the plenary session held at the National Assembly on the 27th. [Image source=Yonhap News]
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