Do Kwon Asks Montenegrin Court To Punish Only Him In Fake Passport Case; Verdict Coming Monday

The ongoing case of Do Kwon and former Terraform Labs chief financial officer Han Chang-joon over the alleged use of fake passports is winding up as the Montenegrin judge handling the case announced that the verdict would be out Monday.

Kwon and Han were tried over fake travel documents on June 16. During the trial, the disgraced crypto entrepreneur told the court that he should be the only one punished.

"If you are punished with a counterfeit passport, only me will receive it," he said, according to the English translation of Yonhap News Agency's report.

Kwon, who attended the trial at the Podgorica District Court with a shaved head, also narrated how he was able to get a passport, which he reportedly believed to be legitimate at the time.

"I completed all the documents through a agency in Singapore recommended by a friend and received a Costa Rica passport," he told the court.

The Terraform Labs co-founder and CEO also said, "There was no reason to doubt that when I applied for a Granada passport through the agency, I was rejected, and when I applied for a Costa Rica passport, the application was accepted."

He added that he trusted the agency because a friend suggested it.

The 31-year-old South Korean citizen, who earned a computer science degree at Stanford University in 2015, argued that if he only knew the passports were not authentic, he would not have traveled to so many countries using them.

"I traveled around the world with a Costa Rica passport. If you suspected it was a counterfeit passport, you would not have traveled to many countries," he said.

During the trial, Judge Ivana Vecic, who is in charge of the case, asked Kwon for the name of the agency that issued the documents. However, the CEO could not provide it, saying, "I had it in Chinese, but I don't remember exactly."

Both Kwon and Han told the court that they did not want the trial to go much longer and disclosed that they would not pursue the reinvestigation of their Costa Rican and Belgian passports.

Despite Kwon's argument, Harris Chabotich of the prosecution reiterated that Kwon's passport was "not issued by a suitable institution."

"It is clear that you made your passport with bad intentions," he said further, as per the translation of the news agency's report.

Following the end of the final arguments presented by both sides, Becic announced that he would make a ruling at 2 p.m. on Monday.

Kwon is still in detention while the court decides on South Korea's request for his extradition. Besides facing fake passport allegations, he is also embroiled in politics in Montenegro after reportedly telling the country's prime minister about his ties to the political party Europe Now, which he claimed to have supported financially.

Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic, alongside political parties and non-governmental organizations, has since urged the Special State Prosecution to launch a probe into Kwon's claim, Balkan Insight reported.