Moon Jae-in, a lawyer-turned-politician running for the main opposition party’s presidential candidacy, is drawing fire for defending a case of political corruption in 2008 when he worked for a Busan law firm.

Moon, a leading candidate of the Democratic United Party (DUP), was part of the defense council for Suh Chung-won, co-chairman of the “Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance.” Suh was convicted and jailed in

2009 for receiving 3.21 billion won (US$2.84 million) in exchange for naming two people as proportional representatives in the 2008 parliamentary race.

The alliance was a party created in 2007 and made up of lawmakers loyal to Park Geun-hye, now the front-runner candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party. It won a total of 14 seats in the polls, including eight proportional representative seats. The alliance completed its merger with the ruling party ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections.

Suh, a six-term lawmaker, and Reps. Kim No-shik and Yang Jeong-lyea lost their seats after they were found guilty by the Supreme Court of buying and selling parliamentary seats.

Speaking of his part in the defense of Suh, aides of Moon said he was on the list of defense attorneys mainly because of his position as lead lawyer for the law firm.

They said that at that time, Moon held no public office, as he had stepped down as chief-of-staff for late President Roh Moo-hyun, and it was before he held a parliamentary seat.

“He was not a politician at the time and as a lawyer he played a role because the case involved legal principles and interpretation of the law,” a source said.

Despite such justifications, Moon’s actions are drawing controversy because he has been against corruption as one of his key campaign pledges in the opposition party nomination race, which will pick the DUP’s presidential hopeful next month.

South Koreans will go to the polls on Dec. 19 to pick the country’s next president, who will take office in February of 2013. (Yonhap News)