Lee Joon-seo, 40, and Lee You-mi, 38, are on trial on charges that they created and disclosed disinformation about the backdoor hiring of Moon Joon-yong by a public agency in 2006 ahead of the vote.

The main opposition party made the revelation three days before the election, accusing Moon, then the presidential front-runner, of exerting influence on the hiring as a presidential secretary under the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.

The tip-off was released to the media in captured images of talks on a mobile messenger between Lee You-mi, the campaigner for then presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo and a man claiming to be a friend of Moon's son.

She was found later to have concocted false information with her brother, who posed as the friend. The disinformation was delivered by Lee Joong-seo to party members on the election panel.

Prosecutors concluded in July that the party's leaders including Ahn were not involved in the scandal. But the fake tip-off brought the centrist party into its worst crisis only over a year after its launch. (Yonhap)