Kumnan pastor indicted for document fabrication
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Kim Hong-do
The prosecution indicted Kim Hong-do, 75, the pastor of Kumnan Methodist Church in Mangwoo-dong, Seoul, Wednesday on charges of fabricating documents.
It also indicted a man surnamed Park who oversees the administrative affairs of the church on the same charges.
They allegedly used phony signatures of a local law practice and its partner attorney in documents submitted to a local court. The law firm, which represented Kim in 2003 when he was prosecuted for embezzlement, sued the pastor and Park for the document fabrication.
The case originates in 2000 when Kumnan Church received a $500,000 of donation from a U.S. missionary group on the condition of constructing a church to accommodate 1,000 North Korean believers by 2008.
However, Kumnan was unable to deliver on its promise to build the church. The U.S. missionary group filed a lawsuit against the church to retrieve their conditional donation and hired a U.S.-based law firm to represent them.
A U.S. court ordered Kim to pay $14.2 million (16 billion won) in punitive compensation. The U.S. group also filed another lawsuit with a Seoul district court through a Korean law firm.
Kim claimed that he lost the lawsuit as the Korean law firm colluded with the U.S. one against him. He claimed the domestic firm handed over documents regarding the embezzlement case and other confidential information to the American firm.
Kim and Park submitted several documents allegedly compiled by the domestic law firm to the Seoul Northern District Court as evidence to support the allegation. The documents had the signature of the law firm’s partner attorney.
The local firm denied the authenticity of the documents and sued Kim and Park for fabricating documents.
Kim denied the allegation, claiming that he and Park obtained the documents from an unidentified source. The hearing will starts next Tuesday at Seoul Northern District Court.
In 2003, Kim was convicted of embezzlement and breach of trust but was bailed out after serving 40 days in prison. Kumnan is one of the world’s largest Methodist churches and has approximately 130,000 registered followers.