President Lee apologizes to former lawmaker No after acquittal upheld on appeal

"Sunbae No Ung-rae, I am sorry. I respect you. I love you."

President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret on social media Friday after an appeals court upheld the acquittal of former Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker No Ung-rae on charges of bribery and accepting illegal political funds.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Lee said he could only imagine how unjust No must have felt after being indicted by what he called "political prosecutors" and stripped of his political career by the party. "I will make sure this country never again sacrifices innocent citizens through the abuse of state power," Lee said.

No was cut from the party's candidate list for the 2024 general election while standing trial on the bribery allegations. Lee was serving as Democratic Party leader at the time.

Lee described No as "a university sunbae I personally respect" and "one of the few people who helped me politically," adding that No had been the party's strongest candidate in Seoul's Mapo-gap constituency. After No was dropped from the ticket, Lee said the party had no choice but to field a rookie — former spokesperson Lee Ji-eun — in the race. No then campaigned for the very election from which he had been excluded, Lee noted, but the party still lost. "Although he was acquitted in both the first and second trials, sunbae No, the Democratic Party, and Korean democracy have already lost far too much," Lee wrote.

Lee said No had become "prey to relentless political prosecutors" and was wrongly branded a corrupt offender. He said the general election held after the Yoon Suk Yeol administration came to power — backed by those same prosecutors — was a critical contest on which the fate of the country and its people depended. "Because we absolutely had to win, even at the cost of our lives, I had no choice but to hold back my tears and exclude former lawmaker No from the candidate list," Lee wrote.

Lee added that as party leader he had been forced to make a painful sacrifice for the sake of the overall election outcome, going along with what he described as the prosecutors' misconduct. "Amid that pain and regret, I offer my congratulations to sunbae No, who has at least been proven innocent and freed from the risk of imprisonment, along with my belated apology," he wrote.

No was indicted without detention in March 2023 on charges of receiving a total of 60 million won from a man surnamed Park across five transactions between February and December 2020, allegedly in exchange for brokering permits for a logistics center and providing favors related to a power plant supply project and a solar energy project.

Prosecutors determined that some of the money had been handed over as campaign funds ahead of the general election and to cover costs for the party's leadership convention. In both the first and second trials, prosecutors sought a four-year prison sentence, a fine of 200 million won ($144,000) and a surcharge of 50 million won.