Police have referred two lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party to the prosecution for investigation and potential indictment on charges of spreading false information against first lady Kim Keon Hee, a police official said Monday.
Police referred Reps. Woo Sang-ho and Jang Kyung-tae to the prosecution last week without physical detention on defamation charges, the official said.
During a radio program last May, Woo claimed that Kim toured the official foreign minister's residence in Seoul's Hannam-dong district to look into the possibility of transforming it into the presidential residence, and told the wife of then Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong to stay out of the house while she looked around.
After winning the March 9 presidential election last year, President Yoon Suk Yeol carried out his campaign promise and relocated the presidential office from Cheong Wa Dae to the former defense ministry building in Yongsan, central Seoul.
The former foreign minister's residence was ultimately transformed into a new presidential residence.
Jang, meanwhile, alleged in a party meeting in November that several items of photography lighting equipment were mobilized to take pictures of Kim paying a goodwill visit to a poor family in Cambodia to meet the family's sick child when she accompanied Yoon on a visit to the country.
The presidential office has since filed a defamation complaint against him.
Police concluded after investigations that the then foreign minister's wife was already out of the house when Kim came to visit while Jang's claims about lighting equipment were untrue, the official said.
Source: Yonhap News Agency