Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, appears at the Seoul Central District Court in the capital city, March 25, to attend a hearing in a development corruption case. Yonhap

Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is set to be sentenced Wednesday in his appellate trial over charges he lied as a presidential candidate during the 2022 election.

The Seoul High Court will hold a sentencing hearing at 2 p.m., some four months after a lower court sentenced Lee of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for making false statements in violation of the Public Official Election Act.

Lee is considered the presidential front-runner in the event suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment is upheld, but confirmation of his sentence by the Supreme Court would strip him of his parliamentary seat and bar him from running in elections for 10 years.

During the initial trial, the opposition leader was found guilty of lying during a media interview in December 2021 that he did not play golf with the late Kim Moon-ki, a former executive of Seongnam Development, which was behind a corruption-ridden development project in Seongnam, south of Seoul, when Lee was the city's mayor.

Lee was also found guilty of lying during a parliamentary audit of the Gyeonggi provincial government in October 2021 that he was under pressure from the land ministry to rezone the former site of the Korea Food Research Institute in Seongnam.

The site was later developed into apartment complexes by a private developer, and allegations were raised that Lee rezoned the land to give preferential treatment to the company. (Yonhap)