Hwacheondaeyu Kim Man-bae Arrest Warrant Dismissed... Court "No Demonstrated Need for Detention" (2nd Report)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The arrest warrant for Kim Man-bae, the major shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management (Hwacheon Daeyu), was dismissed on the 14th. With the dismissal of the warrant for the key suspect in the Daejang-dong development preferential treatment and lobbying allegations case, it is inevitable that the prosecution's investigation will face setbacks.

Moon Seong-gwan, the warrant judge at the Seoul Central District Court, dismissed Kim's warrant around 11:20 p.m. that day. Judge Moon stated, "While it is important to guarantee the suspect's right to defense, it is difficult to see that the necessity for detention has been sufficiently demonstrated." After the pre-arrest suspect interrogation (warrant substantive examination) that afternoon, Kim, who was waiting at the Seoul Detention Center, was immediately released.

Earlier, the dedicated investigation team at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kim Tae-hoon) requested Kim's arrest warrant on the 12th. The charges listed in the warrant included bribery, breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and embezzlement. The investigation team applied bribery charges on the grounds that Kim promised Yoo Dong-gyu, former Planning Director of Seongnam Urban Development Corporation (currently incarcerated), 25% (about 70 billion KRW) of the profits from the 2015 Daejang-dong development and received preferential treatment during the project selection process. The 5 billion KRW paid to Byung-chae, son of Assemblyman Kwak Sang-do, who was a former senior secretary at the Blue House, as severance pay was also judged to be a bribe. The warrant also included charges that Kim, in collusion with former Director Yoo, caused losses of over 110 billion KRW to Seongnam Urban Development Corporation by making shareholder agreements that allowed excess profits from the Daejang-dong development to go to Hwacheon Daeyu. Additionally, 5.5 billion KRW out of the 47.3 billion KRW borrowed by Kim from Hwacheon Daeyu, whose use was unconfirmed, was specified as embezzlement in the warrant.

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