Lawyers implicated of bribery indicted

The Supreme Public Prosecutor`s Office yesterday indicted without physical detention 10 lawyers, including Park Yong-Hwan, and filed a summary indictment against 42 for paying bribes to judges or prosecutors who referred legal cases to them.

The 52 are some of the 115 lawyers who were either disciplined or dismissed for the illegal practice.

The measure is inevitable, as the Supreme Court last month found in its original ruling that Lee Sun-ho, a lawyer who paid commissions to judges and prosecutors of the Uijongbu District Prosecutor`s Office and the Uijongbu District Court, violated the nation`s laws governing lawyers.

According to the prosecution, Park is guilty of having paid two prosecution clerks 3.7 million won each for referring punitive damages cases to him in March 1996. The two clerks were arrested in 1998. Park gave the two a total of 68.79 million won on over 14 occasions for cases they turned over to him.

The Korean Bar Association dismissed Park in August 1998.

The prosecution led a full-scale investigation in 1998 into bribing-for-cases practiced by lawyers, rounding up 115 suspects. The prosecution then asked the KBA to dismiss the 115, but the KBA revoked 48 lawyers` licenses to practice and levied fines on all but three of the rest.