An appeals court overturned a lower court's dismissal in the third-party bribery case tied to former SSANGBANGWOOL Group Chairman Kim Sung-tae and SSANGBANGWOOL's $8 million remittance to North Korea. Kim will face a new trial on the charge.
The Criminal Division 2 of the Suwon High Court (High Court Judges Kim Gun-woo, Lim Jae-nam and Seo Jeong-hee) on the 10th overturned the lower court's dismissal in the appeal of former Chairman Kim, who was indicted on charges including bribery offering.
Kim was arrested and indicted on suspicion of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act for allegedly paying on behalf of the North $5 million in 2019 for Gyeonggi Province's North Korean smart farm support project and $3 million in travel expense for then-Gyeonggi Governor President Lee Jae-myung's visit to the North.
In the first trial in Jul. 2024, Kim was sentenced to two years and six months in prison and to one year in prison suspended for two years (violation of the Political Funds Act).
Immediately after the first-trial sentencing, prosecutors additionally indicted Kim, viewing SSANGBANGWOOL's remittance to the North as third-party bribery for President Lee and others. The first-trial court judged it as "double indictment" and dismissed the case.
The first-trial court cited that the time and place of the offenses and the payees in Kim's Foreign Exchange Transactions Act violation case and the third-party bribery case were all the same.
By contrast, the appellate court said, "The offense of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act punishes those who paid foreign exchange without approval from the governor of the Bank of Korea," adding, "The bribery-offering offense in this case punishes those who, in return for an improper solicitation concerning official duties, offered a bribe to a public official and a third party."
It further found that "to achieve the primary criminal purpose of offering a bribe, the defendant (former Chairman Kim) appears to have accompanied, as a means, a separate offense of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act in the process of paying foreign exchange."
The court's decision on this matter is expected to affect the trial on President Lee's third-party bribery charge, for which he was indicted as a co-conspirator in the same case. President Lee's trials have all been halted since taking office.
Lee Hwa-young, former Gyeonggi Province vice governor for peace, who was indicted as a co-conspirator in this case, has asked the court to enter a judgment of dismissal for himself as well, citing the lower court's dismissal in Kim's case.