Special counsel appeals ruling acquitting Oh Se-hoon: “Key evidence rejected without reasonable grounds”

[Financial News] The Kim Keon Hee Special Prosecutor Team (Special Counsel Min Joung-kie) has appealed the appellate court ruling acquitting Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who was indicted on charges of violating the Political Funds Act.
The special counsel team said on the 30th that it had filed a notice of appeal with the Seoul High Court’s Criminal Division 7, presided over by Judge Koo Hoe-geun, which heard the appeal in Mayor Oh’s case.
The special counsel team argued that the appeals court rejected key evidence without sufficiently examining the grounds for the first-instance court’s finding of guilt. The team said, “It made no clear criticism or assessment of the reasons set out by the first-instance court,” and pointed out that “it unlawfully exceeded the limits of the principle of free evaluation of evidence by rejecting evidence with sufficient probative value without reasonable grounds.”
As indications that Mayor Oh had commissioned opinion polls from political broker Myeong Tae-gyun, the special counsel team presented records of attempted phone calls between Oh and Myeong in January 2021, as well as messages showing that a campaign staffer at the time sent Myeong materials related to the primary. It also emphasized a message sent by the campaign team leader to an acquaintance in February that year, saying that an opinion poll had been commissioned at the expense of Mayor Oh’s side.
As evidence concerning whether the opinion-poll costs were paid on someone else’s behalf, the team cited the fact that supporter Kim Han-jung transferred 10 million won on February 1, 2021, despite having no particular relationship with Myeong. The team said that although Kim paid the costs, Kim did not receive the poll results for a considerable time, while questionnaires and result sheets were continually delivered to Oh’s side.
The special counsel team also challenged the appeals court’s assessment of the evidence. It said that Kim had dozens of recordings in addition to the six files of calls with Myeong submitted at the appeal trial, but the court did not obtain and review the remaining files. The team argued that rejecting the credibility of Myeong’s statements based on only some of the recordings was “an unlawful failure to adequately examine the case, contrary to the fundamental principles of the Criminal Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea: the discovery of substantive truth and a proper trial.”
Earlier, on the 23rd, the appeals court overturned the first-instance ruling, which had fined Oh 10 million won and ordered an additional 21 million won to be collected, and acquitted him. The court said it was difficult to trust all of Myeong’s statements and difficult to rule out the possibility that the opinion polls had been conducted independently of Oh’s commission or that Kim had paid the costs for personal reasons.
Oh was indicted on suspicion of having Kim pay 33 million won on his behalf for 10 opinion polls conducted by Myeong ahead of the 2021 Seoul mayoral by-election. Of that amount, the first-instance court found him guilty only in relation to 21 million won for five of the polls.
 



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