Charges of libel from Twitter messages from the wife of Gyeongi province Governor Lee Jae-myung have been dropped, but it appears unsurprisingly that Governor Lee was the primary target of the prosecutors all along:
Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung will stand trial for telling falsehoods about a series of allegations raised against him and about his family during his election campaign for the governorship. The Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Lee without physical detention on charges of violating the national election law, it said. Lee has been under investigation for allegedly lying about his brother’s institutionalization due to a mental illness during his campaign in the runup to the June local elections. He denied when he appeared on TV debates as a governor candidate that he had used his authority as the then Seongnam mayor to have his now-deceased brother institutionalized against his will. The governor also faced accusations after an actress claimed she had an extramarital affair with Lee. Prosecutors decided to not press any charges against Lee, citing insufficient grounds. “It’s what I expected. I’m not baffled,” he told reporters following the prosecution announcement. Lee also hinted that he would not give up his seat over the indictment and will fight the matter in court. “I still am a proud member of the Democratic Party. I will do my utmost to not cause any more trouble for the party,” he said
You can read more at the link, but Governor Lee was a major rival to current President Moon Jae-in during the last election. The Moon administration has effectively eliminated him now as a future political rival.
Here is the latest on the Moon administration’s attempt to take out another political rival using South Korea libel laws:
Kim Hye-kyung, wife of Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung, emerges from an interrogation by prosecutors for a lunch break on Tuesday. [YONHAP]Prosecutors summoned the wife of Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung for questioning on Tuesday over allegations that she defamed her husband’s political rivals online.
Kim Hye-kyung, who police identified as the owner of the Twitter handle @08_hkkim, told reporters she was tired and frustrated at being wrongly accused as she entered the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi.
“I only hope the truth is revealed,” she said, echoing the words of her husband who underwent his own 13-hour interrogation last week over a number of different criminal accusations.
A police investigation into Kim’s case revealed last month that the @08_hkkim Twitter account posted thousands of political messages supporting Lee and defaming his political rivals. Some of the political figures publicly defamed were Rep. Jeon Hae-cheol of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and President Moon Jae-in.
Prosecutors say that Kim may be charged with spreading false information about Jeon in the run up to the Gyeonggi gubernatorial election in June and smearing the reputation of Moon’s son, Moon Joon-yong, with allegations that he obtained a public sector job through his father’s influence.
Both Kim and the governor deny the accusations, claiming that she never operated the Twitter account. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but with a Twitter handle with her named attached to it she obviously wasn’t trying to hide her identity if it was her. On the other hand it could have been someone else who set up the Twitter handle to set her up. After all the misinformation we saw over the “discovery” of the PC tablet that brought down President Park, anything is possible.
By the way I do like how the prosecutors are going after Governor Lee Jae-myung, a political rival to President Moon Jae-in than they were after fellow Governor Kim Kyoung-soo for his part in the far worse Druking Scandal. I have always said South Korea is not a rule of law country, but instead a rule by law country which means it helps to be the President’s close friend in regards to Governor Kim.
Prosecutors on Tuesday raided Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung’s office and home, apparently to search for his wife’s old mobile phone believed to hold crucial evidence in investigations into her suspected role in political slander.
Prosecutors and investigators from the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office began the raid on Lee’s home in Seongnam, south of Seoul, at around 9 a.m.
About the same time, another group of prosecutors searched Lee’s office in Suwon in the presence of the governor and his lawyer.
The raid was apparently intended to retrieve an iPhone used by Lee’s wife, Kim Hye-kyung, from July 2016 until April this year, when allegations of her involvement in online slandering of Lee’s election rivals surfaced.
Kim, who is suspected of posting slanderous messages on social media sites via her mobile phone, changed her iPhone and phone number in April and told police investigators later that she was not aware of its whereabouts. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but what is ironic about this is that the Moon administration hushed up far worse conduct in the Druking Scandal that they are now going after a political rival’s wife for.
The police have determined that a disputed Twitter account that spread false election rumors belongs to the wife of Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung.
The cyber unit at Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said Saturday that it will ask prosecutors early next week to indict Kim Hye-gyeong on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act.
A police official said details will not be disclosed to the media as Kim denies the charges and a legal battle is expected.
False information was posted on the Twitter account in question in April during the ruling Democratic Party’s primary race for the Gyeonggi governorship. The claim was damaging to her husband’s rival candidate.
The account also falsely claimed in late 2016 that then presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in’s son received employment favors.
The police analyzed some 40-thousand Tweets to identify the account’s owner and concluded that it belongs to the governor’s wife. [KBS World Radio]
Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, one of the leading presidential hopefuls for the opposition bloc, said Tuesday that South Korea should pay less of the defense-cost sharing with the United States, clashing with calls by President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to get Washington’s allies to contribute more.
“South Korea’s defense-sharing cost should be on par with that of Japan,” Lee said during an interview with CBS Radio.
“Germany and Japan pay 18 percent and 50 percent, respectively, while South Korea shares stand at 77 percent,” he claimed.
Lee said the U.S. military presence in the country reflects Washington’s own interests and not that of South Korea. The mayor added the U.S. will suffer a great loss if it pulls its military out of South Korea. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but Japan pays 74.5% of US defense costs, not 50%, while South Korea pays about 50%. Mayor Lee is either blatantly lying for votes or is completely uninformed. Either way it does not reflect positively on him. I wonder if Mayor Lee wants to return to the old days when the Korean government paid the North Koreans more money to fund their nuclear and weapons program than what they spent funding the US-ROK alliance?
UPDATE:
From the Korea Times comes further information on how Mayor Lee came up with his 77% number:
Korea and the United States hold negotiations on cost-sharing for the upkeep of 28,000 American troops every five years under the Special Measures Agreement (SMA). Seoul pays about half the cost — 944.1 billion won ($782 million) and 932 billion won in 2016 and 2015, respectively. The last SMA was made in 2014 and the next negotiations for 2019 through 2023 are likely to begin later this year, according to the foreign ministry.
However, Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, a liberal presidential hopeful, claimed Tuesday that South Korea is actually paying more than Japan and Germany, both of which have a U.S. forces presence.
According to him, Germany and Japan pay 18 percent and 50 percent of the total costs, respectively, while South Korea share stands at 77 percent.
His calculation includes indirect costs such as providing land for bases and firing ranges for free along with an exemption from taxation and benefits such as cheaper electricity and telephone charges — things not included in the SMA negotiations.
In addition, civic groups also insist that the SMA should include the nation’s support such as providing police to guard bases and troops under the Korean Augmentation to the United State Army (KATUSA) program. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but if Mayor Lee wants to play the game of including costs not in the cost sharing agreement than the US side can play that game to. So how much does the use of the US military’s stealth bombers and B-52’s cost? Better yet what about the cost of using the US space based satellites and sensors in support of South Korea? What is the cost of all the US troops that would come to the peninsula in case of a crisis? I could go on and on with costs the US military can add to the cost sharing agreement that right now the ROK is not paying for.
The next cost sharing negotiations to begin this year could end up being really interesting if a committed left wing candidate like Mayor Lee is elected and insists on South Korea paying less.
