The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of Dr. Yang Seung-oh and five other defendants who were charged with violating election laws after raising allegations of military service fraud against Park Joo-shin, the son of the late former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon.
On June 25, the Supreme Court's first division, led by Justice Ma Yong-joo, confirmed the lower court's ruling that found all six defendants not guilty of charges related to the public dissemination of false information and defamation of a candidate. However, one defendant, who was accused of distributing documents in a manner not specified by election law, was fined 700,000 won.
The central issue in the case was whether the allegations made by the defendants constituted 'intentional falsehoods.' The Supreme Court maintained the lower court's finding that there was reasonable and sufficient grounds for the defendants to raise their concerns, making it difficult to acknowledge an awareness of falsehood.
The case dates back to 2011 when Park Joo-shin was sent home from Air Force training due to thigh pain and later diagnosed with a herniated disc, qualifying him for alternative service. Following the emergence of allegations regarding his military service, he underwent a public physical examination at Severance Hospital in February 2012, including an MRI scan.
Dr. Yang, who was then the head of the nuclear medicine department at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, claimed after the public examination that the MRI images had been switched with those of a proxy and subsequently filed a complaint against Park.
Despite the prosecution's decision to dismiss the case against Park, the defendants continued to raise their allegations. They were eventually indicted by the prosecution for attempting to undermine the candidacy of the former mayor ahead of the 2014 local elections.
The first trial resulted in guilty verdicts for the defendants, with fines ranging from 7 million to 15 million won. The court found it clear that no proxy had interfered in the public verification at Severance Hospital and deemed the defendants' medical claims unfounded.
However, the appellate court overturned the guilty verdicts, ruling that it was likely the defendants believed their allegations to be true and that the situation at the time did not adequately resolve the suspicions raised. The court also noted that the individuals who raised the allegations were excluded from the verification process during the public examination in 2012, suggesting that it would have been difficult to conclusively verify whether the MRI subject was indeed Park Joo-shin.
The Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court's legal reasoning and dismissed the prosecution's appeal, ultimately confirming the acquittals.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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