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Former Justice Minister Cho Kook attended the trial today (3rd) as a witness to his wife, Professor Kyung-Shim Chung.
As it was the first day of the two men in one court, attention was focused, but Cho refused to testify on all questions from the prosecution.
This is Lee Hyun-young.
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Former Minister Cho Kuk, who appeared in the court as a witness, read the statement he had prepared after taking the oath as a witness.
"The defendant in this court is his spouse and his child's name is also on the prosecution," he said.
He expressed his intention to refuse to testify.
Article 148 of the Criminal Procedure Act states that you or your relatives may refuse to testify if they are likely to be punished.
The prosecution immediately protested.
"It is difficult to convince former Secretary Cho to refuse to make a statement when he is under investigation by the prosecution, and to refuse to make a statement in court after saying that he will reveal the truth in court," he said.
Then I continued the newspaper.
The day after the prosecution's seizure and search in August of last year, former Minister Cho attended the National Assembly and asked why he said, "I have never changed my mobile phone."
In addition, by presenting the attributes of the certificate file for the Seoul National University Public Interest and Human Rights Law Center and the hotel internship certificate of former Minister Cho's daughter, it was questioned whether or not Cho was involved in the preparation.
However, former Minister Cho Kook repeated 300 times in response to all these questions in the trial, saying, "I will follow Article 148 of the Criminal Procedure Act."
(Video coverage: Kim Yong-woo, video editing: Lee Jae-seong)