Defense team for jailed ex-Gyeonggi vice governor begins reviewing parole, retrial options

The legal team representing Lee Hwa-young, the former Gyeonggi Province peace vice governor imprisoned over the SBW North Korea funds transfer case, has begun a full review of potential legal options, including a parole application and a retrial petition.

According to Yonhap, the defense team convened an in-person meeting Tuesday at 11 a.m. to discuss multiple avenues — including filing for parole, seeking a retrial and pursuing a special presidential pardon.

The meeting was attended mainly by attorneys who handled arguments in Lee's citizen jury trial.

Defense attorney Oh Gi-du said the session would be used "to conduct a legal review and build the logical basis for matters related to a parole application and retrial petition."

Based on the outcome of the meeting, the team plans to visit Lee at Suwon Detention Center in the near future to finalize his position, then release a second statement from Lee this week.

The move follows a sequence of public statements last week. On Wednesday, defense attorney Kim Gwang-min said in an interview and on social media that Lee "is very angry at President Lee" and that he had "conveyed a request for parole to the president's side, but they are not moving." The following day, Lee issued a first statement through attorney Kim Hyeon-cheol correcting those remarks.

In that statement, Lee distanced himself from Kim Gwang-min's comments, saying his attorney appeared to have "expressed heartfelt concern after watching my long imprisonment," while repeating his longstanding claim that the SBW North Korea funds transfer case was fabricated by prosecutors.

Lee is currently serving a sentence of seven years and eight months, confirmed by the Supreme Court, on charges of accepting bribes from SBW Group and conspiring in the transfer of funds to North Korea. In June, he received an additional four-month sentence through a citizen jury trial on perjury charges related to allegations that he was plied with salmon and alcohol to change his testimony.