MBC reporter acquitted for reporting wiretapped conversations

A Seoul court on Friday ruled in favor of a reporter accused of using conversations that were illegally wiretapped by the country's top intelligence agency to raise bribery suspicions involving a leading business group, a case that is seen as exemplifying the conflict between the freedom of the press and people's right to communicate in privacy.

The Seoul Central District Court declared that Lee Sang-ho, a reporter for the MBC TV network, could not be charged for reporting a transcript of bugged conversations suggesting that Samsung Group provided illegal campaign funds for ruling and opposition candidates in the 1997 presidential election.

"The reporter's behavior is justifiable as it was intended to meet the right-to-know of the public on an issue of public interest," said Kim Deuk-hwan, the presiding judge.

The controversial audio recording by the National Intelligence Service contained conversations between a Samsung Group executive, and the then publisher of the vernacular daily JoongAng Ilbo, in which the two allegedly discussed plans to bribe ruling and opposition runners ahead of the presidential poll.

Lee was indicted on charges of violating the Protection of Communications Secrets Act after his report on the tape was aired in July 2005.

Although Lee used the illicit recording to back up his report and violated the communications privacy of the two people involved in the dialogue as a result, he seems not to have strayed too far from journalism ethics, the judge said.

The report shook the nation, sparking strong public criticism of the intelligence agency's illegal eavesdropping, the business practices used to bribe politicians and the arguments about press freedom versus people's rights to private communication. The two interlocutors potentially victimized by the wiretapping were Hong Seok-hyun, former JoongAng Ilbo publisher and then-ambassador to the United States, and Lee Hak-soo, the then-vice chairman of Samsung's corporate restructuring headquarters.

The report forced Hong to resign from his ambassadorial post, and prosecutors later found hundreds of similar tapes believed to contain illegally wiretapped conversations between business, political and news media leaders.

Two former NIS chiefs, Lim Dong-won and Shin Kun, each received three-year suspended sentences for ordering the eavesdropping to be carried out when they served under the Kim Dae-jung administration.

Seoul, Aug. 11 (Yonhap News)