The Supreme Court also did not recognize the National Security Act violation charge against a man in his 60s who sent a letter praising former National Defense Commission Chair Kim Jong Il to North Korea and delivered a condolence wreath to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, China, after Kim died. However, some other charges, including occupational embezzlement, were recognized, and a fine of 10 million won was finalized.
The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Oh Kyung-mi) said on the 31st that on the 4th it finalized the lower court ruling that sentenced Kim Kyong-sung, 66, chair of the Inter-Korean Sports Exchange Association, to a fine of 10 million won on charges including violation of the National Security Act (praise and incitement), violation of the Act on the Development of Inter-Korean Relations, violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, and occupational embezzlement.
Kim ran a sports center with a natural grass soccer field in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, when in 2005 he met soccer players belonging to the "April 25 Sports Team" under the Ministry of People's Armed Forces of North Korea, who were on off-season training. After letting them use the facilities for free, he began sports exchanges with the North. In 2007, he arranged a friendly match in Korea for North Korea's youth national soccer team.
In January 2008, Kim received from the North the right to use, free of charge for 50 years, a 350,000-square-meter (about 106,000 pyeong) tract of land in Sadong District, Pyongyang, and began building a factory to produce sporting goods. But in March 2010, inter-Korean relations were cut off by the Cheonan sinking, and the project was halted.
In March 2010, Kim sent a letter to Kim Jong Il through North Korea's April 25 Sports Team. The letter begins with the sentence "To the great leader General Kim Jong Il," and also says, "General, who always creates a new era." The letter asks that North Korea's national soccer team, which competed in the 2010 South Africa World Cup held in June that year, be allowed to wear soccer cleats produced at the factory he was building in Sadong District, Pyongyang.
In December 2011, after Kim Jong Il died, Kim delivered a condolence wreath to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, China, that read, "The great leader Kim Jong Il will live forever."
In 2015, when Kim was chair of the sports committee of the National Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation (NCRC), he received an instruction from an operative under North Korea's Propaganda and Agitation Department to "provide 500 pairs of Adidas soccer cleats in addition to the soccer gear already promised," bought them, and sent them to the North. Prosecutors judged that 60 million won of the 120 million won sponsored by Gyeonggi Province to the NCRC was embezzled. He did not obtain approval from the Ministry of Unification in the process.
In addition, of the 75 million won a bank sponsored as promotional expenses, Kim used 70 million won to pay a fine imposed on him.
Prosecutors viewed Kim's sending a letter and a condolence wreath to Kim Jong Il as a violation of the National Security Act. They also applied charges of occupational embezzlement and violation of the Act on the Development of Inter-Korean Relations to his sending soccer cleats to the North.
In the first trial, the court sentenced Kim to one year and six months in prison and two years of disqualification. The first-trial court said, "The defendant praised the dictator Kim Jong Il, diverted funds received for projects with the North, and provided goods to North Korea without approval from the Minister of Unification."
However, the appeals court acquitted him of violating the National Security Act and recognized only charges including occupational embezzlement, imposing a fine of 10 million won. The appeals court said, "Even if North Korea uses the defendant's letter or condolence wreath for regime propaganda, our liberal democratic system is not so weak as to be shaken by North Korea's propaganda."
The Supreme Court found no error in the appellate judgment and dismissed both Kim's and the prosecution's appeals.