Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, appeared as a criminal suspect on the 28th and was summoned by the prosecution for the condolences Xincheng and Daejang-dong real estate fraud cases.
The investigation concluded after approximately 12.5 hours.
Yonhap News Agency reported on January 29 that the first part of the anti-corruption search of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office began to interrogate Li Zaiming on the condolence Xincheng real estate fraud case at 10:30 a.m. local time on the 28th, and the third part of the anti-corruption search began in the afternoon. Dazhuangdong real estate fraud case is being interrogated.
Since Li Zaiming refused to be interrogated late at night, the interrogation ended at 9 o'clock that night. Li Zaiming left after confirming the content of the interrogation record.
According to the report, Lee Jae-myung is suspected of disclosing the internal secrets of Seongnam City and Seongnam Urban Development Company to private developers as the final decision-maker of the condolence new city and Dazhuangdong development projects during his tenure as the mayor of Seongnam, making them obtain huge profits.
He is also suspected of deciding to delete the excess profit recovery clause, making Seongnam City unable to obtain additional profits and causing huge losses to Seongnam City.
The prosecution prepared more than 150 pages of interrogation questions for the interrogation, and Li Zaiming will submit a 33-page written statement instead of answering. The interrogation record of the day is more than 200 pages long.
Li Zaiming fully denied all suspicions in his written statement.
The prosecution believes that it is necessary to summon Lee Jae-myung again based on the written statement.
However, Li Zaiming has stated that he has only appeared in the case once, so he is likely to refuse to be interrogated for the second time.
Li Zaiming told the media after the investigation that he felt that the prosecution was not handling the case, but engaging in politics.
Prosecutors are not conducting investigations to find out the truth, but fabricating facts for the purpose of prosecution.
In addition, during the interrogation process, Li Zaiming had conflicts with the prosecution over the delay in the investigation.
Li Zaiming said that the prosecution delayed the investigation for additional subpoenas, repeatedly asked the same questions, and produced the same materials. This behavior is a privatization of state power.
Prosecutors said that Li Zaiming delayed the case for interrogation. Since the real estate project involved in the case had been going on for a long time and the scope of the investigation was huge, the prosecution conducted a detailed investigation based on the content of the report and approval of the final decision-maker.
According to reports, the prosecution plans to summon Li Zaiming again after studying the content of the interrogation.
If Li Zaiming refuses to appear for the trial, it is expected that the prosecution will merge the case with the corruption case involving the sponsorship of Seongnam Football Club and submit to the court for approval of Li Zaiming's arrest.
(Source: The Paper)