MP stripped of seat after Samsung wiretap

The court upheld a conviction of MP Roh Hoe Chan for publishing incriminating wiretaps of conversations between Samsung officials on the internet.

He published transcripts of conversations between an aide to Samsung chairman Lee Kun Hee and his brother-in-law that had been recorded by the national intelligence agency.

The conviction disqualifies Mr Roh from being an MP.

A press release issued by him included a transcript of the conversations, which revealed the names of prosecutors who had been showered with cash by Samsung.

He posted the transcript to his website.

Mr Roh, who was an MP for the opposition Progressive Justice Party, has been a vocal critic of Samsung, South Korea's most powerful conglomerate, which dominates the country's economy.

In testimony to the National Assembly in 2005 he used the wiretapped conversations to call for an investigation into Samsung's relationships with prosecutors.

The probe led to the resignation of a justice minister but prosecutors only indicted Mr Roh and a journalist for releasing the wiretaps.

South Korean MPs are protected by parliamentary immunity.

At issue was whether such immunity applied to cyberspace. The Supreme Court ruled that it did not.

"Unlike distributing press releases to journalists, uploading messages on the internet allows easy access to anybody at any time," the court said in a perplexing statement attempting to justify its decision.