[Law & Story] Why the Verdicts for Ahn Boo-soo and Lee Hwa-young Differ

Ahn Boo-soo Was Indicted Before Kim Sung-tae's Arrest
Business Motives and Payment of North Korea Visit Expenses Are Not Contradictory

Seokjin Choi, Legal Affairs Specialist Reporter.

"Why do our media never point out even once that different divisions of the same court reached completely opposite conclusions on the same case?"

This was the reason reporters had to hear such words from Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, as he was entering the courthouse on the 14th: "Instead of reporting the truth, aren’t you acting like the prosecution’s lapdogs, eagerly distorting and manipulating the information you receive?"

The 'same case' he referred to is the North Korea remittance case in which former Ssangbangwool Group chairman Kim Sung-tae sent 8 million dollars to North Korea, and the 'different divisions of the same court' are the trial division of the Suwon District Court that handled the case of former Asia-Pacific Peace Exchange Association chairman Ahn Boo-soo and the division that recently sentenced former Gyeonggi Province Peace Deputy Governor Lee Hwa-young to 9 years and 6 months in prison.

Lee’s complaint was that the division that handled Ahn Boo-soo’s case judged Kim Sung-tae’s remittance to North Korea as an attempt to secure Ssangbangwool’s priority rights for North Korea business or to boost the stock price of its affiliates, but why did the division handling Lee Hwa-young’s case view the same act as covering the costs of Gyeonggi Province’s smart farm and Lee Jae-myung’s North Korea visit expenses? And why does the media remain silent about these contradictory conclusions?

At first glance, Lee’s claim sounds plausible, but in fact, it is not.

First, we need to look at the flow of the case and the progress of the prosecution’s investigation at each point in time. Ahn Boo-soo’s first trial verdict was handed down in May last year, but the indictment was made much earlier, in November 2022. Kim Sung-tae was arrested in Thailand and extradited to Korea in January last year, so when the prosecution indicted Ahn Boo-soo, the exact nature of Ssangbangwool’s North Korea remittance had not yet been revealed. It is natural that the court’s judgment, which determines guilt or innocence based on the prosecution’s charges, differs from the later verdict in Lee Hwa-young’s case, which was indicted afterward.

Arguing that it is problematic that the contents recorded in Ahn Boo-soo’s verdict, which was issued before Kim Sung-tae?who denied the charges immediately after being repatriated?revealed the tacit deal with Lee Hwa-young for Gyeonggi Province or Lee Jae-myung, and the contents recorded in Lee Hwa-young’s verdict differ, is like saying that because the shipowner has not yet been identified, and mid-level drug dealers or suppliers were indicted and found guilty, but the later-caught shipowner does not appear in that verdict, therefore I am innocent. It is like Lee’s usual argument that a character who does not appear in the first volume of a 20-volume novel cannot be the protagonist.

Furthermore, the fact that Kim Sung-tae sought priority participation in North Korea business to boost the stock price of related affiliates and the fact that the money he sent to North Korea was for Gyeonggi Province or Lee Jae-myung are not mutually exclusive. In other words, it is not a relationship where if one is recognized, the other cannot be at all, like black and white. As the court judged, it is not unnatural to see that Kim Sung-tae, who sent dollars to North Korea at Lee Hwa-young’s request to cover costs, initially hoped to boost stock prices through North Korea business and regarded the two remittances as that opportunity.

The trial division in Lee Hwa-young’s case also considered whether to recognize the purpose of "covering Lee Jae-myung’s North Korea visit expenses," stating, "From Kim Sung-tae’s perspective, he believed that Lee Hwa-young had informed him that Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung was aware that he was bearing the costs, so by covering the governor’s North Korea visit expenses and visiting North Korea together with the governor, or even if the joint visit did not materialize, maintaining a good relationship with the governor would help him in his future North Korea business. Therefore, Kim Sung-tae had an incentive to cover the governor’s North Korea visit expenses at Lee Hwa-young’s request," thus seeing the two as compatible.

The court also said, "The testimonies of Kim Sung-tae and Bang Yong-cheol (former vice chairman of Ssangbangwool Group) were generally consistent despite repeated questioning in court, were specific enough that it would be difficult to know unless they personally experienced it, and mutually corroborated each other," adding, "It is difficult to find contradictions between those testimonies themselves or the underlying facts and recognized facts and objective facts."

After the court’s guilty verdict on Ssangbangwool’s North Korea remittance, the Democratic Party accused Kim Sung-tae of coaching Ahn Boo-soo to give false testimony unfavorable to Lee and reported both to the police, and even pushed for impeachment of the prosecutors who investigated the North Korea remittance case, taking reckless measures to defend Lee. However, as Lee Hwa-young’s lawyer said, "The guilty verdict on Lee Hwa-young will serve as a strong judicial document presuming Lee Jae-myung’s guilt in the future," Lee’s judicial risk is no longer a risk but a reality.

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