Court rules in favor of mayor's son

Court fines doctor W 15 mil. for spreading false rumors over mayor’s son

By Chung Ah-young

Park Won-soon Seoul Mayor

The Seoul Central District Court fined a doctor 15 million won ($12,240), Wednesday, for spreading false information about Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s son.

The fine was much more than the 5 million won originally sought by prosecutors. Six other defendants were also fined between 7 and 15 million won on the same charges.

The court said that Yang Seung-oh, 56, distributed groundless rumors about the military service-dodging scandal surrounding the mayor’s son, Ju-sin, in an attempt to make Park lose the election on June 4, 2014.

A group of doctors and conservative critics including Yang alleged that the junior Park dodged the military duty after submitting another person’s medical records for his health check to the Military Manpower Administration (MMA).

“There is no evidence that another person stood in for Ju-sin during his medical check, and it is obvious that the records he submitted to the authorities the second time were his own,” the court said.

“The accused had the intention of hampering Park’s bid in the election. The crime is grave as Yang knew that the rumor was groundless, but nonetheless, claimed it to be true,” the court added.

Ju-sin joined the Air Force in 2011 but was sent home after four days when he suffered pain in his thighs. He then submitted medical records including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and X-ray data to the MMA. The administration found him unable to perform active duty due to a herniated disc and exempted him from military service. He was sent to perform an alternative service at a public organization.

However, former lawmaker Kang Yong-seok and other conservative civic group members raised the suspicions over the junior Park, claiming that Ju-sin was exempted from military duty by fabricating the MRI data.

To clear the suspicions, the junior Park had a second MRI test at Yonsei University's Severance Hospital in Seoul in 2012 and doctors confirmed that he had a herniated disc.

The junior Park was acquitted of draft dodging charges in 2013. However, as Yang and the other defendants continued accusations against his son, the mayor filed a suit against them and prosecutors indicted them without physical detention in November 2014.

Earlier, the court asked the younger Park to attend a hearing last year for another medical checkup to decide whether the medical records were really his.

But Ju-sin, who has been in Britain, didn’t show up at the hearing and instead the court ordered six medical experts to review the previous MRI data.