Politically Retired Hong Joon-pyo Visits Daegu to Defend Aides
Former Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo appeared at the Daegu District Court on the morning of October 27 as legal counsel for two aides at their detention review hearings (a court procedure to examine whether to detain suspects). Mr. Park and Mr. Kim are suspected of improperly spending tens of millions of won in political funds from Hong's camp during the 2021 People Power Party presidential primary and submitting fraudulent accounting reports, made with fake documentation, to the election commission. Mr. Park is also suspected of paying opinion poll costs on behalf of the Future Korea Research Institute, effectively run by Myung Tae-kyun, but he denies all charges. Police investigated four people, including the former mayor, over these suspicions before handing the case to a special prosecutor in July last year; it was returned to police in March this year, and additional criminal suspicions were confirmed during the investigation.
Wednesday's hearing ran for about an hour and 40 minutes, from 10:45 a.m. to 12:28 p.m. The former mayor denied the charges, arguing that five or six expenditure records police deemed 'fabricated transactions' were real, and submitted related evidence to the court. Defending himself, he said, "In 30 years of politics, I've been investigated dozens of times," adding, "Knowing that full well, wouldn't I have been careful?" He said, "I'm not running in any election again, so what do I care about voting rights or the right to run for office? Now that I've retired from politics, they're turning my entire household upside down like this."
The former mayor described the case as 'manufactured' and criticized the police investigation. He claimed, "As someone who has conducted investigations for a long time, I know better than the police," arguing, "The cases against my staff were fabricated." He also denied suspicions that he fronted payments for Myung Tae-kyun's opinion poll costs. Hong said, "The statute of limitations expires on November 19 under Supreme Court precedent," adding, "To suspend the statute of limitations, they must urgently detain an accomplice, so they fabricated an accomplice at will and sought a warrant." He added, "The judge probably has a headache over this."
The former mayor explained that his son had donated about 15 million won in political funds to a volunteer organization to help his father, and that under the political funds act's family exemption clause, punishment between family members is not allowed. Expressing regret that his son had become a subject of investigation, he said, "Elections involve the whole family pitching in."
