Terraform Labs CEO Do-hyung Kwon, who was a key figure in the UST and LUNA incidents and was indicted in Montenegro for using a forged passport, claimed innocence in the first trial and requested bail.
According to the Associated Press and CoinDesk on the 11th (local time), the trial of CEO Kwon and his aide Han Chang-jun, former CEO of CHAI Corporation, began at the District Court of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, on the afternoon of this afternoon.
The Associated Press reported, citing local state-run media RTCG TV, that two people, including CEO Kwon, pleaded not guilty and requested bail from the court. The bail money offered by the two, including CEO Kwon, is 400,000 euros (approximately 580 million won) each.
According to CoinDesk, in the notice of the trial result, “(CEO Kwon’s) lawyer suggested that instead of detention, bail and supervision measures be taken, prohibiting going out of the residence, and reporting periodically to a specific government agency.”
The court has not yet decided whether to grant bail. The next trial date was scheduled for the 16th of next month.
On the other hand, CEO Kwon is known to have said, “There is an apartment in Korea,” and “it is difficult to disclose additional property,” to the judge’s question about the size of the property in court that day. The judge is said to have warned CEO Kwon that he could make a decision on bail only when he accurately disclosed the size of his property.
Kwon was arrested in Montenegro last March, about a year after he fled, on charges of trying to leave for Dubai using a forged Costa Rican passport, and was handed over to local trial. South Korea and the United States requested the Montenegrin authorities to extradite Kwon.
When the Korean prosecutors confirmed that Kwon had fled via Dubai after leaving for Singapore in April of last year, they immediately issued a red notice from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
The Associated Press reported that the two could face up to five years in prison if convicted of using forged documents in Montenegro. He added that this meant that recruits could not be extradited to other countries until the two had served their sentences in Montenegrin prisons.
At the time of the arrest of the two, the Korean Ministry of Justice said, “The two were hiding in Serbia, and it seems that they moved to Montenegro after Korean investigators pursued them and requested the Serbian authorities to detain them.”
The ‘Terra Crisis’ or ‘Terra Luna Crisis’ is an incident in which the price of Luna, a sister coin that supported the price of Terra, also plummeted as the stable coin Terra lost its peg (fixed value) with the dollar. This is known to have caused about $40 billion (about 50 trillion won) of damage to investors around the world.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.