[Breaking] Ewha-young Lee's Bribery Charges Recognized as Job-Related... Related to North Korea Project 추진

On the 7th at 2 PM, the first trial sentencing hearing was held under the jurisdiction of the Suwon District Court Criminal Division 11 (Presiding Judge Shin Jin-woo) for former Gyeonggi Province Deputy Governor for Peace Lee Hwa-young, who was charged with violations of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (bribery), the Political Funds Act, and obstruction of justice by destroying evidence. The court stated, "The job-relatedness of the bribery charge is recognized."

The court cited circumstances such as Ssangbangwool, which had no prior experience in inter-Korean projects, participating in such projects as grounds for this decision.

The court also found it difficult to accept the defendant Lee’s argument that the approval authority for inter-Korean projects lies with the Ministry of Unification and that local governments only support the central government's inter-Korean projects.

Lee was arrested and indicted in October 2022 on charges of receiving bribes amounting to hundreds of millions of won and illegal political funds by being provided with corporate cards and vehicles from the Ssangbangwool Group from July 2018 to July 2022, and by having false salaries paid to his aides.

During the trial, he was additionally indicted in March last year on charges of asking former Ssangbangwool Chairman Kim Seong-tae to pay on his behalf a total of 8 million USD, including 5 million USD for the smart farm project that Gyeonggi Province had promised to pay to North Korea and 3 million USD for Lee’s trip to North Korea.

One month later, in April last year, he was further indicted on charges of requesting Ssangbangwool Vice Chairman Bang Yong-cheol to delete materials related to his use of corporate cards ahead of the prosecution’s investigation.