Swim bid chief given deferred sentence for forging documents

A district court on Friday handed down a deferred sentence to the secretary general of a local bid committee for the 2019 world swimming championships for forging signatures of ranking officials to win the bid. The Gwangju District Court delivered a suspended six-month term to Kim Yoon-suk, who was found guilty of forging signatures of then-Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and former Culture Minister Choe Kwang-shik on an early version of a bidding document that guaranteed the central government's financial support for the championships. "Heavy punishment is inevitable to prevent the recurrence of similar forgery scandals in bidding for international events," Judge Lee Dong-ho said in his ruling