
Court rules Han could not be categorized as a person intending to run for office at the time of a restaurant donation.
A Seoul court acquitted former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo of violating election laws by donating money to a charitable restaurant, ruling he was not a declared candidate at the time.
AI-generated summary
Han Duck-soo was charged with donating 1.5 million won to a charitable restaurant in Gwangju on April 15, 2025, following an early presidential race scheduled after Yoon Suk Yeol's ouster.
SEOUL, Oct. 1 (Yonhap) -- A court on Thursday acquitted former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo of violating the election law by donating money to a restaurant in the southwestern city of Gwangju that serves nearly free meals to those who need them.
The former prime minister was charged with donating 1.5 million won (US$1,103) from his own pocket to the restaurant on April 15, 2025, shortly after an early presidential race was scheduled following the ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid the previous year.
Prosecutors indicted Han for violating the Public Official Election Act, which bans a "person intending to run for office" from making donations, and demanded a fine of 1 million won for the former prime minister.
The Seoul District Court, however, ruled that Han could not be categorized as a "person intending to run for office" at the time of the donation, saying there had been no explicit expression of a presidential bid by Han, nor any objective evidence to recognize such intent.

China's Supreme People's Procuratorate indicted former Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Hui Yiman on charges of bribery. He is accused of taking a large amount of bribes using his position while working at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Prosecutors Yang Ik-jun, Kim Min-soo, and Byeong-gi Byeon of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office used AI reenactment video to reach a unanimous guilty verdict in the public participation trial of a delivery man who hit an 8-year-old child with a motorcycle and ran away, and was selected as an excellent case in the August trial by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

When a coal mine worker made the extreme choice while fighting pneumoconiosis, his bereaved family won a lawsuit against the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service for payment of pneumoconiosis survivor pension and funeral expenses. The court determined that there was a significant causal relationship between pneumoconiosis, an occupational disease, and death.

Oh Se-hyun, a prosecutor at the Yeongwol branch of the Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office, protested against the National Assembly's vote to revise the Criminal Procedure Act to completely abolish the prosecution's investigative power, and filed an application for a power dispute adjudication and a provisional injunction to suspend effect at the Constitutional Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that the police officer's demotion was justified because he contacted the police officer 20 times requesting cancellation of the civil complaint and repeatedly confessed to the cafe owner during working hours. It was stated that even if some of the reasons for disciplinary action were not recognized, the disposition could be maintained based on the remaining reasons alone.

The Seosan Branch of the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office announced on the 23rd that it had decided not to indict Gasero, the former governor of Taean County, South Chungcheong Province, due to insufficient evidence, after he was suspected of receiving golden toads in exchange for personnel favors. Civil servant A and broker B, who were also under investigation, were also not indicted.