From 'Wirye New Town' to 'higher elders'... President Lee says, "They even doctored the Daejang-dong recording to implicate me"

[Financial News] President Lee Jae-myung criticized the so‐called "Jung Young-hak recording," submitted by the prosecution during the trial over alleged corruption in the Wirye New Town development project, calling it "absurdly fabricated evidence."
In the early hours of the 14th, President Lee shared on X (formerly Twitter) a post from another account claiming that the recording had been manipulated, and commented that it was "just one of countless such cases."
The post Lee shared argued that the phrase "Wirye New Town, I’ll do everything the way you decide" was altered to "the higher elders will do everything the way you decide," in a way that would make listeners think of President Lee.
On the 5th, after prosecutors decided not to appeal the case, President Lee also wrote on X, "They tried to drag me into a case that doesn’t even stand on legal grounds, and they went so far as to doctor the Daejang-dong recording—changing it from a 'Wirye New Town story' into a 'higher elders story'—and submitted it as evidence."
Earlier, a recording of remarks allegedly made by attorney Nam Wook to accountant Jung Young-hak became a key point of contention in the trial.
In the transcript, Nam is recorded as saying, "Yu (former Seongnam Urban Development Corporation planning director Dong-gyu Yu) said, 'No matter what method you use, as long as it doesn’t look problematic from the outside, it doesn’t matter. ○○○ will do everything the way you (Nam Wook) decide.'"
In court, Nam explained that the indistinctly recorded "○○○" part referred to the phrase, "Wirye New Town will do everything the way you decide."
However, the prosecution argued that this part actually said, "the higher elders will do everything the way you decide," and claimed that these "elders" referred to President Lee and Jeong Jin-sang, former chief of political affairs for the Democratic Party of Korea.
newssu@fnnews.com Kim Soo-yeon Reporter