This has always been a strange murder suicide case and the speculation from this reporter a court has decided is not slander:
A Seoul appellate court acquitted a reporter on Friday of falsely claiming that the younger brother of President Park Geun-hye may have been behind the murder of his nephew.
In 2013, a lower court had cleared Joo Jin-woo, a reporter of the monthly news magazine Sisa IN, of charges that he spread false information about Park Ji-man in an article published in December 2012.
At the height of President Park’s presidential campaign, Joo’s article revisited a 2011 case in which the body of Park’s nephew was found on a hiking trail near Mount Bukhan in northern Seoul. Just three kilometers from the scene, another one of her nephews was found hanging from a tree.
Police concluded that one of the nephews had murdered the other after getting into a financial dispute, and then hung himself.
But Joo alleged that Park Ji-man may have ordered the murder, citing a legal dispute between Ji-man and his brother-in-law, who is the father of the two nephews.
Joo also faced charges that he slandered the president’s late father, former President Park Chung-hee, during a book event in 2010.
Upholding a lower court ruling, the Seoul High Court said Joo was not guilty of spreading false information since he’d tried his best to uncover the truth behind the murder. [Yonhap]
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