Former Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min enters the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 31st for a pre-arrest investigative interrogation (warrant hearing). Yonhap News. 

The trial of former Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, who has been indicted and arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit rebellion related to the emergency martial law of December 12, will be handled by the Criminal Division 32 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Kang Wan-su).

According to the court on the 20th, the Central District Court has assigned the trial for former Minister Lee on charges of engagement in a vital task of rebellion, abuse of power, and perjury to this division.

This judicial panel specializes in economic cases and is currently presiding over the trial of SPC Group Chairman Huh Young-in and other executives for alleged coercion to leave the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.

Presiding Judge Kang, who is from the 33rd graduating class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, served as a judge at Gwangju District Court, Uijeongbu District Court, Seoul Northern District Court, and Seoul High Court before working as a presiding judge at Chuncheon District Court's Gangneung Branch and Uijeongbu District Court.

The special prosecutor's team led by Cho Eun-seok, which is investigating suspicions of rebellion and foreign exchange violations related to emergency martial law, transferred former Minister Lee to trial in custody on the 19th.

Former Minister Lee is accused of failing to prevent the illegal declaration of martial law as the minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the ministry in charge of peacetime martial law, and effectively abetting it.

He is also accused of committing 'acts of subverting the constitution' that infringed upon freedom of the press and the public's right to life and safety by relaying instructions to cut off electricity and water to media outlets to the National Police Agency and the National Fire Agency, and thereby sequentially participating in former President Yoon's rebellion offenses.

The special prosecutor's team also believes that former Minister Lee gave false testimony during the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial proceedings for former President Yoon in February, stating that he had not given instructions to cut off electricity and water and had not received such instructions from the president.

Yonhap News