Lee Jae-myung "Prosecutors' Recording Edited" vs Kim Jin-sung "Denial of Perjury Coaching, Personal Sense of Betrayal"

In the perjury coaching trial of Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, Lee repeatedly denied the charges, claiming that the prosecution had manipulated the transcript. Meanwhile, Kim Jin-sung, who admitted to perjuring himself in Lee's criminal trial at Lee's request, expressed feeling a "personal sense of betrayal" toward Lee's attitude.

On the afternoon of the 26th, during the trial of Lee's perjury coaching charges held at the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 33 (Presiding Judge Kim Dong-hyun), Lee stated, "Looking at the transcript, I said phrases like 'Please tell the truth as it is,' 'Please recall your memory,' and 'I am not trying to reconstruct the incident' twelve times," adding, "To call this perjury coaching is an unfair prosecution and harassment that contradicts the accurate evidence such as the transcript and witness interrogation records."

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is attending the Supreme Council meeting held at the central party office in Yeouido, Seoul on the 23rd. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

On the same day, Lee's defense attorney also claimed, "We deny all the charges," and argued, "Considering the circumstances and evidence at the time, the phone conversations between the defendant and Mr. Kim cannot be seen as demands for false testimony."

In response, the prosecution rebutted, "The defendant Lee Jae-myung's claim of transcript manipulation is completely untrue," and stated, "If you listen to the entire recording file, any reasonable person can clearly tell whether the defendant was asking Mr. Kim to testify truthfully or to give false testimony as requested."

Meanwhile, in the morning session of the same day, the trial of Kim, who was indicted for perjury, was held separately.

Kim maintained his previous position that he gave false testimony at Lee's request. When the prosecution asked, "Did you give false testimony because you could not refuse due to the pressure of multiple calls from Lee Jae-myung, then Governor of Gyeonggi Province and a leading presidential candidate, and the favorable public opinion in the Seongnam community supportive of Lee?" Kim answered, "Yes."

Kim also expressed feeling "very hurt" regarding Lee's claim during the first trial on the 22nd of the previous month that he and Kim had a "very dangerous relationship" and a "love-hate relationship."

On the same day, the prosecution presented text messages exchanged between Lee and Kim in court as evidence that, contrary to Lee's claims, the two maintained a friendly relationship until recently. The messages were from September 2022, when Kim Yong, a close aide to Lee and former deputy director of the Democratic Research Institute, was arrested.

At that time, Kim called Lee to console him but, receiving no answer, sent a text message saying, "Stay strong, brother," to which Lee replied the next day, "Thank you."

Earlier, when Lee lost in the presidential election the same year, Kim sent a text message saying, "Let's recover and look for the next opportunity. Brother, governor, mayor, president, prospective president," and Lee responded, "Thank you ^^."

Regarding the reason for his perjury, Kim said, "He was in a situation with big dreams, so I felt pity and wanted to help because it was an urgent situation." He also revealed that there was pressure because it was a request from the Governor of Gyeonggi Province.

During the trial, the prosecution played a recording file in which Lee told Kim, who claimed not to remember, "You can just say you heard such a thing."

The court intended to proceed to sentencing for Kim, whose defense was separated from Lee's, but accepted the prosecution's request to wait until Lee's trial concluded to balance the sentences between the defendants.

Lee was previously indicted for conspiring with Choi, a producer (PD) of KBS's "Chujeok 60 Minutes," who impersonated a prosecutor by phone to Kim Byung-ryang, then mayor of Seongnam, at Lee's lawyer office in Seongnam in May 2002. In July 2003, the Suwon District Court sentenced Lee to a fine of 1.5 million won for impersonating a public official, and the Supreme Court finalized the ruling in December 2004.

The prosecution judged that Lee informed Choi of the name of the prosecutor to impersonate and the questions to ask, and Choi impersonated the prosecutor to investigate allegations of preferential treatment and zoning changes related to Bundang Baekgung and Jeongja District Parkview to Kim Byung-ryang, then mayor of Seongnam.

However, on May 29, 2018, during a KBS-hosted debate for the 2018 Gyeonggi Province gubernatorial election candidates, Lee responded to a rival candidate's question about the prosecutor impersonation by saying, "I did not do it; the PD impersonated the prosecutor while I was being interviewed nearby, so I was falsely accused of helping," and "I never made a call impersonating a prosecutor. I was falsely accused because I was being interviewed nearby while the PD did it."

Lee was indicted without detention on December 11, 2018, for false statement under the Public Official Election Act based on these remarks. The charge was that Lee conspired to impersonate a prosecutor by informing Choi of the prosecutor's name and questions and, despite having been criminally punished for the impersonation case, falsely claimed he was not involved or complicit in the prosecutor impersonation incident.

The prosecution reports that Kim, who was a secretary to former Seongnam Mayor Kim Byung-ryang, along with Kim In-seop, former CEO of Korea Housing Technology, agreed to receive money in exchange for facilitating permits related to the Baekhyeon-dong development project and was asked by Lee several times by phone around December 2018 to testify that "there was an agreement or atmosphere to withdraw the accusation against Choi to frame Lee as the main culprit between Kim Byung-ryang and KBS during the prosecutor impersonation incident," in relation to Lee's Public Official Election Act violation case.

According to the indictment, Kim appeared as a witness at Lee's trial for the Public Official Election Act violation held at the Suwon District Court Seongnam Branch on February 14, 2019, at 2 p.m., took the witness oath, and testified to the effect that there was such an agreement or atmosphere, even though he did not know or remember if such an agreement or atmosphere actually existed.

The prosecution also judged that Kim's response to questions about his phone calls with Lee, saying, "The defendant said there were parts he did not remember well, so I contacted him once," was also perjury.

In that trial, Lee was ultimately acquitted.