A progressive college student was indicted for the “Supreme Prosecutor’s Office bombing,” but there was no evidence? [Reconstruction of the incident]

Indicted on charges of posting threats, but not guilty... Court: “There is no evidence of writing”
Defense attorney: “The premise of the investigative agency’s filtering method was wrong from the beginning.”

“On behalf of progressive college students, I am planting a bomb at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.”

On May 17th last year, at approximately 6:48 p.m., an article like this was posted under the title ‘Saturday Day’ on the A University current affairs bulletin board of ‘Everytime’, an online service app for university communities.

The police identified the mobile IP used to create the post and identified 197 cell phone numbers that were connected to the mobile IP at the time the post was posted. Among them, only one person, Mr. B, was a member of Everytime University A.

Mr. B is a student at the university in question, and was indicted on charges of intimidation and obstruction of official duties based on the fact that he accessed the bulletin board on the day the post was made very close to the time of posting.

The purpose is to announce the harm as if a bomb attack occurred at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office building and cause harm to the lives or bodies of Supreme Prosecutors' employees, and to have app users call 112 to threaten Supreme Prosecutors' Office workers, including those in charge of building protection. There are also allegations that police officers were dispatched to the scene to search the Supreme Prosecutors' Office building and conduct patrol duties, thereby interfering with the police officers' legitimate performance of their duties.

However, Mr. B consistently denied the charges, saying, "I did not post the relevant article" from the investigation to the trial.

At the time, Mr. B claimed that his sister asked him to do a survey that afternoon, and that he only posted the survey and contents sent by his sister on the bulletin board a few hours later, but did not write a post.

Mr. B claimed that he accessed the bulletin board about three times between 4 PM and 6:22 PM that day and went to check comments on a survey posted on his account.

Judge Lee Go-eun, Criminal Division 2, Anyang Branch, Suwon District Court, found Mr. B not guilty on the 17th of last month.

Judge Lee said, “It is confirmed that Mr. B actually posted the survey and contents sent by his sister at the request of his sister,” and added, “Even in the digital forensic results requested by Mr. B and the digital forensics results on Mr. B’s cell phone conducted by the investigative agency, no circumstances were found that Mr. B wrote the post about this incident.”

He went on to explain, “Not only is there no evidence to suggest that Mr. B has engaged in political activities or expressed political opinions, but there is also no clear reason or motive for writing the post in this case,” adding, “There is absolutely no direct and objective evidence to acknowledge that Mr. B wrote the post.”

Attorney Jeong Woo-cheol of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. B, said, “In this case, the only evidence that Mr. B was guilty was that Mr. B was the only student at University A who used a specific IP at the time of the posting,” and added, “The method of filtering out students at University A among IP users was based on a wrong premise from the beginning.”

He added, "We emphasized that convicting a young man simply because of several coincidences is directly contrary to the principle of criminal trial, 'when in doubt, use the defendant's benefit.'"

Reporter Han Su-hyeon (shan@news1.kr)

[View full article]
A progressive college student was indicted for the "Supreme Prosecutor's Office bombing," but there is no evidence? [Reconstruction of the incident] (Shortcut)