A former executive of the National Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation (Minhwa-hyup), indicted on charges of misappropriating hundreds of millions of won in subsidies intended for aid to North Korea, was sentenced to prison in the first trial.
According to legal sources on the 19th, the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Agreement Division 32 (Presiding Judge Ryu Gyeong-jin) on the 2nd sentenced Eom, a former external cooperation team leader at Minhwa-hyup who was indicted on charges including occupational embezzlement and violation of the Local Government Subsidies Act, to three years in prison and ordered the forfeiture of a little over 67 million won.
An accomplice, a person surnamed Choi, was also sentenced to three years in prison, with a forfeiture order of a little over 60 million won.
Minhwa-hyup is an organization established in 1998 during the Kim Dae-jung administration by about 200 groups, including political parties and civic organizations, to prepare for national reconciliation and unification.
Around 2018, Eom and Choi served as the planning director and operations director, respectively, of a project group that was entrusted by Minhwa-hyup to carry out a salt aid project for North Korea. Eom also served as Minhwa-hyup's external cooperation team leader and handled the aid project.
They are accused of personally using about 470 million won in subsidies that Minhwa-hyup received from Jeollanam-do for a salt aid project for North Korea between November 2019 and July 2021.
There are also charges that they used 68 million won in aid funds related to a rice flour aid project for purposes unrelated to the project.
The court noted that they embezzled funds that should have been used for Minhwa-hyup and that the amount totals about 500 million won.
It added, "In particular, the 470 million won embezzled by the defendants was subsidies paid by Jeollanam-do for the salt project for North Korea, which is the people's tax money," and explained the sentencing reasons by saying, "The damage from the embezzlement has not been fully remedied."
However, the court considered as a favorable circumstance that their project group achieved the original objective of the rice flour aid project.