Lee's comments on Kim Moon-ki found guilty of comprehensive crime

[Anchor]

Today (Nov.15), the court ruled that unlike the statements related to the Baekhyeon-dong project, the statements regarding the late Kim Moon-ki were guilty under the concept of 'comprehensive crime'.

It may sound a bit unfamiliar.

Comprehensive crime refers to treating several closely related criminal acts as a single crime for the purpose of punishment.

The prosecution identified four false statements made by Lee, and the court pointed out that only the denial of having played golf was an illegal act of publicizing false facts, while the other three statements, including not knowing Mr. Kim, were found not guilty.

However, due to the intent of publicizing false facts for the purpose of election, and because these statements were made around the same time, the court judged them as a single guilty act without a not guilty verdict, based on the concept of 'comprehensive crime'.

Reporter Kim Beom-joo will explain this in more detail and in an easier way.

[Report]

The prosecution identified Lee's four statements related to Mr. Kim Moon-ki as 'false'.

First, ① the statement that 'I did not know Mr. Kim during my tenure as the mayor of Seongnam' and ② the statement that 'I learned about him after being indicted for violating election laws during my time as governor'.

[Lee Jae-myung/then Democratic Party presidential candidate/Dec. 27, 2021/KBS 'The Live': "(The late Kim Moon-ki) was the practical person in charge of Daejang-dong project. I knew him well, so after I was indicted, I had several phone calls during the investigation."]

The court determined that these three statements could not be seen as denying 'personal relationships' as claimed by the prosecution.

However, it made a different judgment regarding the statement ③ that 'I did not play golf with Kim Moon-ki during my overseas trip'.

[Lee Jae-myung/then Democratic Party presidential candidate/Dec. 29, 2021/Channel A 'Lee Jae-myung's Propose': "It was shown as if I played golf, but when I checked, it turned out that part of our group photo was taken out and shown like this. It was manipulated."]

The court viewed this statement in the context of 'not knowing Mr. Kim' and accepted it as meaning 'I did not play golf with Mr. Kim'.

It then concluded that Mr. Kim and Lee had played golf, and that Lee's denial of this fact was 'false information', asserting that there was sufficient time to remember between the initial statement of not knowing and the golf statement, thus recognizing intent and ruling it as 'guilty'.

Therefore, the court explained that while the previous three statements should be found not guilty, the 'golf statement' being guilty means that the statements related to Mr. Kim fall under the crime of spreading false information according to the principle of 'comprehensive crime'.

This is KBS News, Kim Beom-joo.