Oh Sehoon Accused of "Announcing False Information" on Han River Bus; Police to Question Complainant Tomorrow

Namdaemun Police Station to question complainant at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 3
Democratic Party fact-finding team files complaint alleging violation of Public Official Election Act

Police have launched an investigation into a complaint accusing Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon of publicly announcing false information in connection with alleged corruption involving the Han River Bus project.

On Nov. 2, Namdaemun Police Station in Seoul said it would question Assemblyman Park Jumin, head of the Democratic Party of Korea's fact-finding team investigating the alleged cover-up of corruption involving the Han River Bus project, as the complainant at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 3. The team filed a complaint with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Oct. 29, accusing Mayor Oh of violating the Public Official Election Act by announcing false information.

Oh Se-hoon, Mayor of Seoul, delivers a policy address on the 2027 budget proposal and fund management plan during the plenary session of the 340th regular meeting of the Seoul Metropolitan Council in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 2nd. Yonhap News.

The team alleges that at a Seoul Metropolitan Council plenary session on Nov. 20 last year, Mayor Oh gave an inaccurate account of why a request for a public-interest audit of the Han River Bus project had been dismissed.

At the time, Mayor Oh said, "(The Board of Audit and Inspection) told us that it could not conduct an additional audit because an audit requested by the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee was still pending." However, the fact-finding team challenged the statement, saying that the official letter the mayor received from the Board of Audit and Inspection cited only the reason that "the matter could be handled through the Seoul Metropolitan Government's own audit."

The team also claimed that a statement Mayor Oh made on March 17, when he officially announced his participation in the People Power Party's Seoul mayoral primary, was false. He said, in effect, that "the Board of Audit and Inspection's findings had completely dispelled suspicions that an unqualified contractor had been selected." The team pointed out that the audit did not address allegations of kickbacks related to the selection of the shipbuilder. It also said Mayor Oh had been informed of the allegations by the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Audit Committee in September last year and therefore knew they had not been resolved, but made the statement anyway.

In a statement issued on Oct. 29 under the name of spokesperson Ho Jun-seok, the Seoul Metropolitan Government called the accusation "a malicious distortion of the facts that ignores the full context and intent of the remarks." It said the remarks came as the mayor was explaining the overall circumstances surrounding the audit, including that an additional audit had been difficult because a Board of Audit and Inspection audit requested by the National Assembly was already underway.

The statute of limitations for prosecuting violations of the Public Official Election Act related to this year's local elections expires on Dec. 3.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.