'Spreading blatant falsehoods to smear the president'
The Democratic Party of Korea filed a criminal complaint Thursday with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency against People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, accusing him of defaming President Lee Jae Myung by spreading false information in violation of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection.
The party's legal committee, chaired by lawmaker Yang Bu-nam, said in a press release that Jang had posted on his Facebook account Tuesday claiming that President Lee "has become a spokesperson for North Korea's Korean Workers' Party on nuclear weapons issues and is defending North Korea," and had appended content related to the SBW inter-Korean fund transfer case — which the committee said was unrelated to the nuclear issue — to smear the president.
The committee said Jang had made "blatant false claims" suggesting that President Lee had personally wired illegal funds to North Korea, was concealing receipts of those transfers, and had received operational funds from the North. It noted that it has already been established that the entity that directly sent funds to North Korea in the so-called SBW inter-Korean fund transfer case was Kim Sung-tae, the former chairman of SBW Group, and that even prosecutors — who the committee said had abused their authority to force an indictment against President Lee at the time — never made the claim that Lee had personally made the transfers or was hiding receipts.
The committee added that the allegation that North Korea had provided President Lee with operational funds "has never been raised even at the level of suspicion in any investigation or trial, and is a completely fabricated lie."
The committee also said Jang "recklessly spread blatant falsehoods with no basis whatsoever in order to maliciously smear the president," calling the conduct "a clear criminal act that goes beyond the bounds of permissible political criticism."
Yang, the committee chair, urged investigators to conduct a thorough probe and impose strict punishment, saying Jang's claims "cross the line and constitute low-grade smearing that exploits ideology and national division."
bigroot@heraldcorp.com
