Seoul's Gangseo Ward office chief removed from office upon suspended prison term

SEOUL, May 18 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court finalized a suspended prison term Thursday for Kim Tae-woo, chief of the Gangseo Ward office in western Seoul, on charges of leaking official secrets, a sentence that automatically expels him from office.

The top court finalized the one-year prison term, suspended for two years, that a lower court has handed to Gangseo Ward office chief Kim Tae-woo, by dismissing his appeal.

By law, a regional government chief is stripped of his or her seat if sentenced to a prison term or worse.

Kim, formerly an investigator affiliated with the prosecution, was charged with revealing to the media official secrets he gleaned while working for a special inspection team under the chief presidential secretary for civil affairs from Dec. 2018 to Feb. 2019.

Classified information he was accused of leaking included intelligence on an alleged bribery involving former Amb. to Russia Woo Yoon-keun and former Korea National Railway chief Kim Sang-gyun, and classified reports by the presidential inspection team.

A district court and an appeals court have previously convicted him on four counts of official secret leakage, both handing out the suspended prison sentence.

pbr@yna.co.kr
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