PROSECUTION TO QUESTION LEE JAE-MYUNG

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The prosecution decided to summon Democratic Party representative Lee Jae-myung for bribery allegations related to the Seongnam FC football club. He was notified of the summoning Thursday, and Lee Jae-myung and the DP immediately blasted the move saying that it's an attempt to destroy the opposition and removal of political foes. The DP leader expressed his intent to not respond to the prosecution's call.

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The prosecution charged Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung with third party bribery. While serving as the mayor of Seongnam City. Lee was allegedly improperly solicited by private corporations and compelled the businesses to pay bribe-like contributions not to himself but to the Seongnam football club, a third party. Six corporations in total Doosan E&C, Naver, Nonghyup, Cha Medical Center, Hyundai Department Store, and Alpha Dome City gave donations in the amount of roughly 16 billion won. The prosecution believes that in return for sponsoring the Seongnam FC, these companies enjoyed such privileges as building permits and zoning changes from the Seongnam city government. Investigation progressed at different speeds for these enterprises. The police had investigated Doosan E&C earlier and its ex-president was indicted in September. The prosecution wrote in the indictment that Lee Jae-myung and Jeong Jin-sang, former policy secretary for the Seongnam city government and the DP's ex-political affair coordinator, were accomplices. It was declared early on that the final target of the investigations was Lee Jae-myung. Three months since then, the prosecution reinforced the investigation team to probe whether the donation from Naver was reciprocal in nature. Former Naver CEO was also summoned for questioning recently. It was the prosecution's strategy to raise the probability of punishing Lee by further specifying the suspicions on the corporations. Also, Jeong Jin-sang was summoned for questioning on December 21st. That signaled that the prosecution is finally ready to summon Lee. Meanwhile, Lee Jae-myung was in his hometown of Andong in Gyeongsangbuk-do province on his birthday to be closer to the public's voice. He lashed out at the prosecution, the government and the ruling party, claiming that the prosecutors suddenly summoned him after several years of nitpicking investigations.

[Soundbite] Lee Jae-myung(Chair, Democratic Party) : "They want to summon me for advertising the FC for which I was acquitted. The most unfair and most shameless administration is the Yoon Suk-yeol administration!"

The DP also called the summoning of the leader of the largest opposition party as an attempt to destroy the opposition and removal of political foes and criticized it as unprecedented violence.

[Soundbite] Kim Eui-kyeom(DP Spokesperson) : "They notified summons unilaterally without advance arrangement or manners. They just sent a single-page fax at around 9 a.m."

Lee Jae-myung raised issue with the fairness of the investigation, essentially implying that he would not accept the prosecution's summons.