Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee (left) and former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min (right) arrive at Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu on Thursday for the first-instance sentencing hearing in their obstruction of business case. [Yonhap]
Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee (left) and former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min (right) arrive at Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu on Thursday for the first-instance sentencing hearing in their obstruction of business case. [Yonhap]

Former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min and former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee were acquitted Thursday in their first-instance trial on charges of pressuring a private company to hire a former senior Democratic Party of Korea official.

Judge Im Hye-won of Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 19 handed down the not-guilty verdicts against Noh and Kim, who had been charged with obstruction of business. Two co-defendants — a former presidential personnel secretary identified only by the surname Kwon, and a former head of the Land Ministry's operations support division identified only by the surname Jeon — were also acquitted.

The court found that Noh, Kim and the others had recommended Lee Jeong-geun, a former deputy secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Korea, as the successor to a standing adviser post at Korea Multimodal Logistics, and that the recommendation followed existing practice. It said the conduct could not be considered an exercise of coercive influence or interference with the company's hiring process.

The court also noted that Korea Multimodal Logistics had never objected to Lee on the grounds that he lacked logistics industry experience or relevant expertise. Taking into account the relationship between the company and the Land Ministry, the court concluded that the company had simply received a recommendation for a successor and proceeded with its hiring process in line with its own interests.

The defendants were indicted on charges of interfering with the company's personnel operations by arranging for Lee to be hired as a standing adviser at Korea Multimodal Logistics in August 2020, during the Moon Jae-in administration.

Prosecutors had argued that Korea Multimodal Logistics initially opposed hiring Lee but ultimately complied out of fear of retaliation from the presidential office.

Throughout the trial, Noh and Kim denied the charges.

Noh said in court that the presidential chief of staff serves concurrently as chair of the personnel recommendation committee under law, and that various personnel recommendations are routinely reported to the chief of staff. He said prosecutors had smeared him by characterizing a lawful, routine act of receiving a personnel recommendation as solicitation, and accused them of orchestrating a media campaign against him.

His argument was that forwarding a recommended candidate to the presidential personnel secretary's office — a function he performed as committee chair — was an ordinary and lawful duty, and that he had neither solicited the adviser position on Lee's behalf nor acted on any such solicitation.

Kim also argued in court that prosecutors had selectively charged only appointments recommended by the Moon administration, excluding from their indictment people hired on the Land Ministry's recommendation during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations, out of the six total hires made on ministry recommendations.

She added that officials at Korea Multimodal Logistics had not once expressed opposition to hiring Lee as a standing adviser, and called for a not-guilty verdict.

The court accepted the arguments put forward by Noh and Kim and acquitted both.

Immediately after the verdict, Noh said many people had described the case as politically motivated retaliation by prosecutors against key figures from the previous administration. "It must be made clear in the future whose influence led to this indictment," he said.

Kim said it had taken five years to reach a first-instance verdict. "Politicians may chalk this up to political retaliation and move on, but the fact that innocent civil servants were put through investigations, trials and audits because of this case shakes the foundations of state governance," she said. "I appeal for an end to public officials being made scapegoats of politically motivated investigations."


notstrong@heraldcorp.com