Former YG Entertainment CEO Yang Hyun-suk denied that he attempted to cover up an investigation into alleged drug use by the agency's singer-rapper Kim Han-bin, whose stage name is B.I.

This comes after Yang was indicted in May on charges of threatening and coercing an informant who testified to police about Kim's alleged drug purchase in August 2016.

During a trial preparation hearing at the Seoul Central District Court on Friday, Yang's legal counsel said while his client did meet with the informant, a K-pop trainee who at the time faced drug charges of her own, he had neither threatened nor coerced her.

The lawyer representing a YG employee, who is accused of paying the informant upon Yang's orders, also denied the charges.

Yang is also suspected of conspiring with the informant's then-entertainment agency to send her abroad in 2016, but that investigation has been suspended as the agency's chief is currently on the run overseas.

Yang was ordered to pay a fine of 15 million won last November on charges of gambling at casinos in Las Vegas between 2015 and 2019.