South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung has been indicted on bribery charges connected to an alleged scheme involving transferring funds to North Korea.
Prosecutors are accusing Lee of asking apparel maker Ssangbangwool Group to illegally transfer $8 million to North Korea between 2019 and 2020, when he was serving as governor of northwest Gyeonggi province.
Yonhap news agency says Lee’s deputy governor, Lee Hwa-young, was sentenced last week to nine-and-a-half years in prison in connection with the illegal money transfer scheme. Prosecutors say Lee Hwa-young funneled the money to boost a commercial program in North Korea sponsored by Gyeonggi and to facilitate a planned visit to Pyongyang by Lee Jae-myung.
Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party, is already on trial on unrelated corruption charges, including those related to a property development scandal during his tenure as mayor of a city near Seoul.
The liberal lawmaker narrowly lost the 2022 presidential election to conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, and is considered to be a leading candidate to succeed the president when Yoon’s single term expires.
He was seriously wounded in January when an attacker stabbed him in the neck while he was meeting with reporters at the construction site of a new airport in the southeastern port city of Busan. He was airlifted to Seoul National University Hospital for a two-hour surgical procedure to repair the jugular vein in his neck.
Some information for this report came from Reuters.