To Impeachment Committee Member Jeong Chung-rae:

I request that prosecutors Lee Chang-soo, Jo Sang-won, and Choi Jae-hoon be adopted as witnesses during the impeachment review and that I, Song Young-gil, also be selected as a witness.

In the April general election, I ran for office from prison. During the official campaign period, I earnestly pleaded to meet with voters for even a single day, but my bail request was denied. Due to the lower than expected support rate for my Pine Tree Party, I ended up with approximately 600 million KRW in debt. I was indicted for violating the Political Parties Act, a law meant to ensure fairness in internal party elections, yet I was deprived of the opportunity to campaign in the far more significant National Assembly elections.

In the first trial, among the four charges against me, the court acquitted me of:

1. Distributing cash envelopes to National Assembly members

2. Providing money to regional chairs

3. Violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Certain Crimes (Third-Party Bribery)

However, the court convicted me of violating the Political Funds Act by constructing donations to the Think Tank Peace and Livelihood Research Institute as personal political funds. I was sentenced to two years in prison. I never expected to be immediately detained. This was an issue of serious legal contention, and my right to defense was severely infringed. Why was I taken into custody?

The prosecutors who demanded a nine-year sentence for me must have risked everything in order to prevent my release. And I believe this will directly influence the decision on their impeachment. If I had not been detained, I would have waged an all-out fight for the arrest and indictment of Kim Keon-hee.

Over the past year, the prosecution has conducted over 100 searches and seizures targeting me. 

Prosecutor Kim Young-cheol, who is suspected of improper collusion with Jang Si-ho and evidence fabrication involving a tablet PC;

Kim Keon-hee, who allegedly profited 2.3 billion KRW from stock manipulation;

Prosecutor Choi Jae-hoon, who dismissed the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case without conducting a single search or summons;

Prosecutor Choi Jae-hoon, who also falsified investigation reports during official briefings.

These are the prosecutors from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2 that led the investigation and indictment against me.

They protected Kim Keon-hee like law firm attorneys, concealing evidence for her, while suppressing favorable evidence for me, violating their duty of prosecutorial impartiality. They turned a debt relationship between Lee Jung-geun and Park Woo-sik into an influence-peddling case, then used separate investigations to sensationalize the “money envelope case” for two years.

The reason I have consistently fought against the money envelope case with anger is that the very prosecutors who investigated me were the ones who:

Dismissed the Kim Keon-hee Covana Contents case without charges;

Indicted members of the Clergy Solidarity for Political Reform for violating political funding laws, yet dismissed the case where suspects from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office provided massive financial sponsorships for an exhibition hosted by the prosecutor general’s wife;

Dismissed the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case.

If Lee Chang-soo, Jo Sang-won, and Choi Jae-hoon had properly arrested and indicted Kim Keon-hee, it could have prevented a national crisis. I request that Impeachment Committee Member Jeong Chung-rae adopt me, Song Young-gil, as a witness in the impeachment trial proceedings. I also urge the Constitutional Court justices to grant me the opportunity to testify on the constitutional and legal violations committed by these three prosecutors.