Kim Jin-ae: "Shincheonji Members Swept Up All Admission Tickets for Lee Man-hee Trial... Distribution Method Needs Improvement" [2020 National Audit]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The probability of winning a ticket to attend the trial of Lee Man-hee, the chairman of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Shincheonji), has been revealed to be as high as 600 to 1. There are calls for improvements in the application and distribution methods of the attendance tickets.

According to a press release announced on the 20th by Kim Jin-ae, a member of the Open Democratic Party on the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, the Suwon District Court received 13,930 applications to attend the third trial of the chairman via mobile text messages (excluding duplicates, 9,827 individuals). Considering that only 17 attendance tickets were available, the winning probability reached 578 to 1. This figure is significantly higher compared to the 99 applicants (winning probability 3.3 to 1) for the first trial sentencing attendance of former President Park Geun-hye's state corruption case.

Rep. Kim stated, "There is a need to improve the application and distribution methods for attendance tickets for this chairman’s trial." The current method raises concerns that if numerous Shincheonji members apply simultaneously, the relatively small number of victim families may have very low chances of obtaining attendance tickets. Kim added, "There is strong suspicion of collective applications by Shincheonji members. Since it is practically difficult for victims who genuinely need to attend the trial to secure tickets, it would be desirable to allocate some tickets preferentially to the victims (complainants) who filed the lawsuit and then conduct a lottery for the remaining tickets."

In fact, during the first and second trials of the chairman’s case on the 12th and 14th respectively, all 17 attendance tickets allocated each time were distributed on a first-come, first-served basis at a specific time. It was reported that all these tickets went to Shincheonji members. After a physical altercation occurred between Shincheonji followers and victim families during the distribution of tickets for the second trial, resulting in three injuries, the Suwon District Court recently changed the ticket distribution method to applications via mobile text messages.

Chairman Lee was indicted in August on charges including violating the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act and obstruction of official duties by deception, for conspiring with Shincheonji executives in February, when COVID-19 was spreading centered around Shincheonji, to report reduced lists of followers and meeting locations to health authorities. The fourth trial is scheduled for the 21st.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.