"Acquittal of Accused Does Not Mean Victim Lied"... Supreme Court Upholds Not Guilty Verdict for Professor Who Revealed Sexual Assault

Accused of Defamation After Revealing Sexual Assault

Guilty Verdict in First Trial, Acquittal in Second

Supreme Court: "Non-indictment Alone Does Not Prove Falsity"

A university professor who was put on trial for defamation after publicly revealing to the media that she had been sexually assaulted by a fellow professor has been acquitted by the Supreme Court. The court ruled that a victim's statement cannot be automatically deemed "false information" and punished solely on the basis that investigation authorities cleared the accused of wrongdoing.

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News Agency

According to the legal community, the Supreme Court (Presiding Justice Oh Seokjun) upheld the lower court's acquittal for Professor A, who had been indicted on charges of defamation.

Professor A was prosecuted for telling a journalist in April 2021, "After a research institute dinner for a national project in June 2019, a professor from the Department of Information and Communication Engineering at the same university followed me home under the pretense of giving me a ride and raped me," which led to the publication of an article on the matter. She was accused of damaging her colleague's reputation through a total of three media interviews and related activities.

Previously, Professor A had filed a criminal complaint against the other professor for rape, but investigation authorities dismissed the case due to insufficient evidence. The Daegu High Court also dismissed Professor A's request for a judicial review.

The central issue in the trial was whether Professor A's statements to the media could be considered "the dissemination of false information," an essential element of defamation, when the accused had not been indicted.

The first trial, relying on the investigation's conclusions and other factors, found Professor A's claims to be false and sentenced her to eight months in prison, suspended for two years.

However, the second trial reversed the verdict and acquitted her. The appellate court stated, "The fact that investigation authorities decided not to indict does not, by itself, prove that Professor A's interview statements were false," and pointed out, "There has been no proof of falsity beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Supreme Court also found no legal error in the appellate court's acquittal and dismissed the prosecution's appeal.

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