Was Democratic Party Leader Lee Jae-myung absent from the court trial without informing the judge? No, that's not true: He requested a reschedule from the judge due to a scheduling conflict with his party's event.
The claim appeared in a video that's no longer available but is archived here on TikTok by @_scktv.100 (archived here) on March 14, 2024, under the title (translated from Korean to English by Lead Stories staff) "Lee Jae-myung apologized for skipping his 'Dae-jang Dong trial'... Lee said 'Sorry for disrupting schedule'. Lee faced the judge's stubborn attitude against him and..."
The video opened (as translated):
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, had the court trial schedule for the Dae-jang Dong allegation today, but he skipped the trial without notice to attend his election campaign committee launching event.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Mar 15 01:44:01 2024 UTC)
However, the video's claim is inaccurate, as Lee did inform the court in advance.
On March 12, 2024, at 10:30 a.m., Lee was scheduled to appear for the court trial. However, being the leader of the opposition in office, he was also obligated to attend the Democratic Party's election campaign committee inauguration ceremony (archived here).
Multiple local press outlets (archived here, here and here), reported that on March 11, 2024, the day before the trial, Lee notified the court and requested a rescheduling. The judge declined. Nevertheless, Lee attended the party event first, resulting in a three-hour delay for his trial (archived here and here). The trial was postponed due to Lee's absence but resumed at 1:30 p.m. once he arrived at the court. According to multiple reports from local media outlets (archived here, here and here), Lee apologized to the judge for being late.
