of the same crimes: defamation and breaking the wiretapping law.
Found guilty at the conclusion of his first trial, Roh Hoe-chan appealed.
In South Korea both prosecutors and defendants can appeal up to two
times. In 2009 an appeals court found in his favor and chastised the
prosecutors for not bothering to investigate the content on the tapes
adequately.
“Any person who possessed an ordinary and rational intellect would
naturally make the strong assumption that the money was paid according to
the content of the conversation,” said the judge.
The court believed that Roh was telling the truth. It believed that the
person who received money from Samsung was indeed—as the lawmaker
claimed—the top prosecutor whom Roh had named in his own, private
investigation.
Prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 2013 overturned
the ruling in a sensational and much-watched trial.
In 2013 Supreme Court judges ruled that Roh had indeed violated the
anti-wiretapping law when he released the transcripts. Moreover, the
recordings, the court ruled, were not in the public interest and therefore
shouldn’t have been published.
Lawyers and pundits were puzzled by this part of the argument. How
could the recordings not be in the public interest if a top justice official and
an ambassador who was the chairman’s brother-in-law, though never
criminally charged, stepped down?
The court also ruled that parliamentary immunity did not protect Roh.
He was stripped of his seat in the National Assembly. He became a public
example of what happens when you challenge the Republic of Samsung.
“I don’t regret it,” he told me. “I stood up for what is right.”—
CHAIRMAN LEE’S GUILTY VERDICT was problematic for the International
Olympic Committee (IOC), where he was a member and played a
prominent role in lobbying on behalf of South Korea.
Following the verdict, Chairman Lee voluntarily gave up his rights as an
IOC member. He risked losing his membership—and, therefore, losing
South Korea future bids to host the Olympics.
Rumors swirled of a pardon for the chairman, in the classic South