Korean Air chairman to take witness stand in daughter's trial
By Kim Rahn
Cho Yang-ho
Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho will attend a hearing as a witness later this month in the “nut rage” trial of his daughter Heather Cho, the airline’s former executive vice president.
The Seoul Western District Court said Tuesday that it decided to call in the chairman for her second hearing slated for Jan. 30.
“We will send a written summons to the chairman,” an official at the court said.
During the first hearing on Monday, Judge Oh Seung-woo decided on the summons by exercising his authority, even though prosecutors and Heather Cho’s lawyers did not request one.
She was indicted after ordering a plane bound for Incheon to return to the gate at JFK International Airport in New York on Dec. 5 and kicked a chief flight attendant off the plane as she was dissatisfied at the way a junior attendant served her macadamia nuts.
Regarding the summons, a source said that Chairman Cho will attend the hearing. “It was not prosecutors or lawyers but the judge who wanted the summons, so it may not be right for the chairman to refuse it. He will stand as the chief of the company and as her father,” he said on condition of anonymity.
The chief flight attendant, Park Chang-jin, disclosed Heather Cho’s alleged violence and abuse of authority to the media, although the carrier allegedly forced him to give false testimony to investigators and threatened to fire him.
Oh said that when deciding punishment for Heather Cho, he would refer to the chairman’s opinions about Park’s job stability.
“It seems Heather may be able to return to work at any time. But I wonder if Park can retain his job at Korean Air,” he said at Monday’s hearing. “I’m calling in Chairman Cho to confirm whether Park can really continue his work.”
When Heather Cho underwent prosecutors’ questioning in December, her younger sister and another Korean Air executive, Emily Cho, sent a text message to the defendant saying: “I’ll avenge you.” Suspicions were that Emily Cho would target Park.
The judge also decided to call in the junior attendant, surnamed Kim. Kim, who is known to have suffered from Heather Cho’s violence together with Park, allegedly gave a false testimony about the incident to transport authority investigators after the carrier promised to offer her a professor job at a Korean Air-affiliated college.
In the meantime, Korean Air made public video footage, taken at JFK on the day of the incident. In the footage, the plane is moved backward by a towing car for about 17 meters for 23 seconds, and then stops there for about 3 minutes before moving forward back to the gate.
Based on the footage, Heather Cho’s lawyers claimed the plane was not on its flight course yet and thus she did not force a change in the aircraft’s course as prosecutors claim.