hankyoreh

Sept 1. Police apprehended 16 individuals who participated in Samboilbae for Yongsan on Aug 31.

Lee Chung-yeon had on black mourning clothes and turned his back to the judge and faced the courtroom audience and CCTV camera.

In the first row sat his wife, Jeong Yeong-sin. She, too, was wearing black. Lee asked the court to delay the trial since his condition was poor, but the judge would not accept his plea. Lee was unable to look at his wife. Prosecutors quickly read from the documentary evidence, including their interrogation notes. The defendant did not speak a word.

The “Yongsan Tragedy” trial continues to encounter problems. On Tuesday, the defendants’ legal team tendered their resignations just ahead of the seventh public hearing to be heard by the 27th criminal division of the Seoul Central District Court. The defendants refused a public defender, but the trial proceeded as scheduled. When four people in the courtroom protested, they were arrested for contempt of court.

The defense team spoke of a sinking feeling while turning in their resignations earlier that morning. Lawyer Hwang In-seok, who is a member of the defense team, said if prosecutors pushed forward with the trial without making their investigation records public, the trial would be unfair. He said the legal team did all they could to get prosecutors to release their records, and there was nothing more they could do. In a statement, MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society said to make defendants undergo a trial such as this one was a worst case-scenario for a lawyer and ran contrary to a lawyer’s conscience. The group said a trial like this was far from representing a fair trial held in a civilized nation, and was instead a judicial disgrace that trampled on the constitutional rights of the defendants.

When the trial commenced just after the legal team’s resignation, the nine defendants, including Lee, requested that the trial be postponed until they could hire new lawyers, since they did not want to entrust their cases to a public defender. The court turned down their request. The lead judge said that the defendants had been in detention for quite some time and during which, the court had sufficiently given defendants enough notice for preparation. The judge said the trial would proceed. In response to his decision, four members in the audience stood up wearing masks and surprised everyone. Commotion in the courtroom broke out when the judge ordered the guards to arrest the four for contempt. When the court turned down their request to delay the trial, Lee and the others said they refused to participate in the trial and turned their backs to the bench. The trial, nonetheless, proceeded as normal.

The next hearing date has been set for Sep 8, but because the issue of releasing the investigation notes has yet to be settled, it appears the trial will continue to crawl along. The defendants’ former legal team is continuing to urge prosecutors to release some 3,000 of their 10,000 investigation notes. The court has ordered prosecutors to release their investigation records, but the prosecutors have refused. The defendants’ legal team filed a complaint with the court, but the Supreme Court tossed it out on Aug 11.

After the hearing, Jeong Yeon-sin asked whether it was a mistake to demand a fair trial and to ask that prosecutor's investigation notes be released. She said that ultimately, the only place they can turn to is the court, but they are being hurt once again. Jeong headed to a shrine at Hannam-dong’s Suncheonhyang Hospital, where the body of her father-in-law is. Today is the 225th day since Lee Sang-nim, her father-in-law and the father of the defendant Lee Chung-yeon, died in the Yongsan fire.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]