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SEOUL, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- South Korean prosecutors have sought a seven-year prison term on charges of orchestrating a comment-rigging scheme for an online blogger. Prosecutors also asked Wednesday a judge at Seoul Central District Court to sentence from six months up to three-year jail term to members of the blogger-led group.
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Political blogger Kim Dong-won, known as "Druking," has been accused of interfering the presidential race in 2017 by manipulating online comments and using an automatic clicker software to raise the number of "likes" on news articles and online posts in favor of President Moon Jae-in and his political party.
"They manipulated public opinion by making a small group's opinion to look like the majority view. It's a serious crime that shakes the fundamentals of democracy," said prosecutors, Yonhap News reported.
Kim is also accused of offering illegal political funds to liberal lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan, who committed suicide over accepting the fund from the group. Roh left a note saying no political favors were attached to the money.
The blogger also alleged to have bribed a former secretary of Kim Kyung-soo, governor of South Gyeongsang Province.
Kim denied the charges against him and pleaded not guilty.
Kim said his team made a report with economic policy recommendations to Moon when he was a presidential candidate and claimed that he contributed to setting economic policies of the current government, according to Hankyoreh.
Kim said he was disappointed how economic policies unfolded and called Moon and Kim "faithless."
"From 2016 to 2018, we did everything to make Moon President and Kim his second-in-command. I apologize to the South Korean people by making such incompetent people leaders of this country," he said at the court.
