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South Korean minister Jaerock Lee arrives Thursday at the Seoul District Central Court for his trial. He was found guilty of violating eight adepts and sentenced to 15 years in prison. (Jung Yeon-I / AFP / Getty Images)
Simon Denyer
Head of the Tokyo office covering Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
TOKYO – The controversial leader of a South Korean mega-church, Jaerock Lee, was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison for raping eight female followers after telling them that he was executing "an order of God." ".
Lee is the head of the Manmin Central Church, which has 133,000 followers and 10,000 branch and associated churches around the world.
He has long been a controversial figure: he was expelled from the Christian Council of Korea in 1999 for his "heretical" convictions and was termed "sectarian leader" by the Association of Korean Ministries after claiming that he was "guilty". he was sinless and free from death.
"The victims, who have been attending the church since their childhood, felt that to obey Lee as a divine figure is the way to paradise," the court said in its verdict. "Apparently, the victims were psychologically positioned to be powerless to disobey Lee, and Lee took advantage of their status to commit the crime."
The court said Lee denied the "objective facts" during the investigation and had shown no remorse in the courtroom. Lee, 75, was about 50 years older than his victims.
"The victims believed him to be a divine being exercising divine power," said the court. "They would have accepted Lee's behavior as a divine act, rather than sexual, and stopped questioning him, thinking it would be a sin."
Accusations that Lee abused his power to have sex with female followers have been circulating for two decades. In 1999, about 300 of his followers stormed a Korean TV channel after airing a documentary criticizing Lee and claiming he could cure the disease. His sect had previously obtained a court order barring Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. to broadcast a story about Lee's sex life.
Lee was also invited to preach around the world, his church claiming that he had performed miraculous healing acts.
"At every crusade overseas, countless people have received God's healing of incurable and deadly diseases such as AIDS, cancer and other similar diseases, when Rev. Dr. Lee prayed not by placing his hand on each of the sick, but simply the pulpit, "said the Manmin Central Church on his website.
In August, South Korean sect leader Shin Ok-ju was arrested for persuading his followers to flee to Fiji to escape the famine that was threatening the Korean peninsula, and then beat them ritually. She was arrested when she arrived in Seoul.
A video later revealed that she was hitting her supporters and ordering them to hit each other.
Min Joo Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
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