[Anchor]

President Lee Jae-myung has expressed his difficulty in accepting the guilty verdict against his close aide, former Deputy Director of the Institute for Democracy Kim Yong, regarding illegal political funds. He specifically pointed out that it is a bizarre conclusion to reject the Google Timeline, which automatically records location data, as evidence for innocence. The opposition party has criticized his remarks as interference in the judicial process.

Reporter Kang Cheongwan reports.

[Reporter]

President Lee Jae-myung wrote on social media yesterday (July 15), citing a post by Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Geon-tae, who serves as vice-chair of the party's special committee on responding to fabricated indictments, that "it is truly difficult to understand how the prosecution can indict and the court can convict based on the bizarre conclusion that the Google Timeline, which has been used in court as evidence for guilt, cannot serve as evidence for innocence in this specific case."

In the post cited by President Lee, lawmaker Lee argued that while the prosecution has actively utilized the Google Timeline—which automatically records location information via smartphone—as evidence for guilt in other cases, they dismissed it as "unreliable" in the case of former Deputy Director Kim Yong.

He also cited a recent court ruling that recognized an industrial accident by accepting the Google Timeline as evidence in a trial regarding whether a death was caused by overwork.

Kim, a former close aide to President Lee, was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine in both the first and second trials on charges of receiving illegal political funds from private developers in the Daejang-dong project, and is currently awaiting a Supreme Court ruling.

During the second trial, Kim's side presented the Google Timeline as evidence to claim an alibi for the time the prosecution alleged the illegal political funds were received. However, the court did not accept it, citing reasons such as the lack of a clear method to verify its accuracy because Google does not disclose the operating principles of the timeline, and the possibility of distortion if the phone is powered off or location tracking is disabled.

The People Power Party criticized the remarks, stating, "This is blatant interference in the judicial process by the President," and added that "he has crossed a line that should never be crossed."

(Video reporting: Jung Sang-bo, Ha Ryung, Yoon Hyung | Video editing: Park Sun-soo | Graphics: Kim Han-gil)