▲ Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Kun-tae and independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon
Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Kun-tae announced today (July 18) that he is canceling a one-on-one debate with independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon regarding the abolition of the prosecution's supplementary investigation powers, just one day after agreeing to it.
Lee stated on his Facebook page today, "I have decided that it is not right to ignore the will and concerns of the party members who support me," adding, "I will not proceed with this debate."
On July 16, Han, a former prosecutor, proposed to the Democratic Party, "Let us publicly debate why the abolition of supplementary investigation powers is against the public interest." The debate was arranged after Lee, also a former prosecutor, responded yesterday by saying, "I will explain one by one why the prosecution should not hold investigation powers."
Lee, who also served as a defense attorney for the Daejang-dong case, said today, "The reason I agreed to the debate was that I believed Han Dong-hoon, along with Yoon Suk-yeol, was a person responsible for leading fabricated indictments by putting political prosecutors at the forefront," adding, "I wanted to clearly hold him accountable for that in front of the public."
He added, "I take the many opinions and advice from our party members seriously," and "The will of our party members is the will of us all."
In response, Han retorted, "Lawmaker Lee ran away ahead of the debate. I heard that Democratic Party politicians and some supporters pressured him to run away because he thought he would be unilaterally overwhelmed in the debate," adding, "If a public party is shameless, it is over. The Democratic Party is finished."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.