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Chun lawyers

threaten

trial boycott

SEOUL: Defence lawyers for former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan said on Monday they would boycott his trial if prosecutors continued to leak information against Chun to the press, news reports said.

"If these activities, that have caused wrong presupposition and prejudice against the defendants, continue we will boycott the trial," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted lawyer Chun Sang-sok as telling a three-judge panel of a Seoul court.

Chun Doo Hwan, along with his successor Roh Tae-woo and nine other former military leaders, are on trial facing charges over a 1979 military coup and a brutal army crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the southwest city of Kwangju the following May.

Chun's lawyer accused prosecutors of misleading the public by "leaking" information that had nothing to do with the charges against the defendants through formal or informal news conferences, Yonhap said.-Reuter