(LEAD) Prosecution asks DP leader Lee to appear for questioning

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SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- The prosecution has notified new leader Lee Jae-myung of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) to appear for questioning next week, a party spokesperson said Thursday, denouncing the investigation as "political revenge."

Lee was asked to come to the prosecution next Tuesday as part of an investigation into allegations that he lied during the presidential campaign about a land development project pushed for in Seongnam, south of Seoul, when he was its mayor.

The DP strongly protested the summons.

"The prosecution served Chairman Lee a summons for absurd reasons. This is a demand that we find hard to accept," the party's spokesperson, Rep. Park Sung-joon, told a press briefing.

"The DP cannot back off against political revenge on the leader of the main opposition party and a former presidential candidate who competed against President Yoon Suk-yeol as well as political suppression to break up the main opposition."

Lee has been under probe on suspicion of violating the election law in connection with the so-called Baekhyeon-dong Scandal.

The scandal centered on allegations that the municipal government of Seongnam, just south of Seoul, gave special treatment to a private developer, which developed Seongnam's Baekhyeon-dong district into apartment complexes, between 2015 and 2016, when Lee was the city's mayor.

The private developer reportedly earned windfall profits after the city somehow cancelled an original plan to provide rental homes and allowed the developer to sell homes to consumers.

Lee, as a DP presidential candidate, alleged during a parliamentary inspection on Oct. 20 last year that the special favor in the Baekhyeon-dong project was given at the request of the land ministry.

But the People Power Party, the then opposition party, said the special treatment was found to have been voluntarily awarded by the Seongnam city government and filed a complaint against Lee with the police on charges of spreading false information in violation of the election law.

Lee, who lost to Yoon in March's presidential election by a thin margin of 0.73 percentage point, was elected the DP's new leader in a landslide vote Sunday.

mlee@yna.co.kr
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