Gyeongnam Governor Kim Gyeong-soo, who was accused of illegally manipulating public opinion using comments, was sentenced to two years in prison in the second trial following the first trial.
On the 6th, the second criminal division of the Seoul High Court (Sang-Hoon Ham, Min-gi Kim, and Tae-han Ha) sentenced Governor Kim to two years in prison, similar to the first trial, for manipulating comments (interrupting work with computers, etc.).
However, at the first trial, the charges of violating the Public Office Election Act, which was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years probation, were acquitted at the appeal trial.
Governor Kim was sentenced to jail that day, but he was not arrested in court.
Earlier, he was sentenced to jail, arrested in court, and released on bail on appeal.
In response, the judge explained that "some innocents were convicted in the appeal trial and innocent under the Public Officials Election Act, but they gathered opinions that it was not to cancel the accused's bail."
Governor Kim has been charged with manipulating public opinion with the comment manipulation program'King Crab' from around November 2016 in conspiracies with the so-called'Druking' Kim Dong-won.
Governor Kim insisted that he knew the Drucking gang was working by manually pressing the sympathetic button on comments, but did not know the existence of the manipulation program, but the court did not accept it.
The judge said, "The fact that the defendant observed the demonstration of the King Crab prototype at the office of the Economic Cooperation Meeting was proved without reasonable doubt." I judged it.
He said, "In a democratic society, the formation of fair public opinion is the most important, and you have to take responsibility for the act of manipulating it."
The judge said, "Even if you haven't used a manipulation program called King Crab, tolerating the activities of such an organized comment unit is something you should never do as a politician to be respected."
Governor Kim decided to continue manipulating comments after the 2017 presidential election until Drooking and local elections.At the end of the same year, Governor Kim was also charged with proposing the position of Sendai General Consul of Doo-hyung Doo-hyung to Drooking (violation of the Public Officials Election Act), but was acquitted at the appeal trial. Done.
The court explained the reason for the judgment, "It is difficult to say that the proposal for the post of Sendai general consul was related to local elections."
In January 2018, when Governor Kim proposed Do's position as General Consul General of Sendai to Drucking, it is not related to the election campaign, given that no local election candidates have been decided yet.
Governor Kim announced that he would appeal immediately after the judgment was sentenced, saying, "I respect the court judgment, but it is a judgment that I cannot understand."
(Composition: Eul-sun Cho, filming: Doo-won Yang, editor: Seung-yeon Park)