A court in South Korea has convicted opposition leader Lee Jae-myung for violating election law, casting uncertainty over the prospects of him running for president in next year’s election.
The Seoul Central District Court found the Democratic Party leader guilty of making a false claim about a land development project in 2021 while campaigning for presidency.
The court handed him a jail term of a year, suspended for two years.
Lee, however, said he would appeal the ruling in a higher court. “It’s a conclusion that I cannot accept,” Lee told reporters as he left the court.
"There are still two more courts left in the real world, and the courts of public opinion and history are eternal," he said, apparently referring to plans to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Lee is a firebrand liberal who lost the 2022 election to conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol by a thin margin.
He became a top contender to unseat Mr Yoon, whose approval ratings have plummeted to record-low levels as he grapples with his own political scandal.
Lee’s chances increased after a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in April and won enough seats in the parliament to pressure the conservative ruling People Power Party.
Considered one of the most polarising figures in South Korean politics, Lee, a former child factory worker who endured an industrial accident after dropping out of school, has often highlighted his rags-to-riches journey to political stardom.
However, his career has been overshadowed by scandals and allegations of links to organised crime.
In January, Lee survived a knife attack, sustaining a neck injury that required surgery.
In 2022, prosecutors indicted Lee on charges of making false claims about two contentious development projects in Seongnam, where he served as mayor from 2010 to 2018, during his campaign as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
On 25 November, the same court will rule on another case against Lee in which he is accused of suborning perjury by allegedly pressuring a Seongnam city employee to give false testimony in a different court case in 2019.
The testimony was meant to downplay his 2003 conviction that, when as a lawyer, he had helped a TV journalist impersonate a prosecutor to secure an interview with then-Seongnam Mayor Kim Byung-ryang over suspected corruption in 2002.
Lee has denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of Mr Yoon, a prosecutor-turned-president, of pursuing a political vendetta.
Additional reporting by agencies
