Chung Bong-ju, the former opposition lawmaker convicted of spreading false information about President Lee Myung-bak has asked the prosecution that he be jailed after Christmas.

Opposition parties, who have blasted his conviction as a political gambit, threatened to protest should the prosecutors reject the offer.

According to media reports, Chung’s solicitor on Friday morning requested the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office that Chung, sentenced to one year in prison by the Supreme Court, be jailed next Monday afternoon.

“He needs some time to put his affairs in order and say goodbye to his family and friends,” wrote Joo Jin-wu, his friend and reporter for weekly magazine, SisaIn, on his Twitter account.

According to the law, a court ruling is referred to the prosecution where the prosecutors call in the convicted person for detention. The prosecutors have demanded Chung report to their office by 5 p.m. Thursday, then delayed it to 10 a.m. on Friday.

“The next time he does not show up, he will be arrested,” a prosecutor insider said.

Chung, who served as a lawmaker between 2004 and 2008 in the then-main opposition Democratic Party, now the Democratic Unified Party, was a star panelist of “Naneun Ggomsuda (I am a slacker),” the world’s most downloaded political podcast.

The program, revealing what they claimed to be the dirty laundry of the Lee Myung-bak administration, drew millions of weekly downloads. Chung’s light-hearted but informed remarks made him an overnight sensation after the program launch in late April. He is currently the most popular politician online with more than 136,000 members in his online fan club, well-ahead of the second-ranked Park Geun-hye of the ruling Grand National Party at 66,000.

Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, Chung’s supporters as well as opposition politicians denounced the court’s ruling as biased.

Citing a previous acquittal of Kim Hyun-mi, a former DP lawmaker, over the same charges, Chung’s lawyer Lee Jae-hwa claimed that the ruling may well be politically motivated.

“Chung has become a very influential person through the podcast and we could tell that the administration made Chung a scapegoat so that Lee’s opposition would keep silent over allegations in the future,” he said in a radio show.

DUP leader Won Hye-young also urged the government to accept Chung’s request for delayed admission to the correctional facility.

“If not, we will defy the judiciary for making biased rulings against Chung,” he warned. “We will follow Chung in hunting down the scandals that the president has been involved in many financial scams.”

By Bae Ji-sook
(baejisook@heraldcorp.com)