Court-raised suspicions against ex-minister Park

During the trial of those accused of involvement in the Hanvit Bank illegal loan scandal on Tuesday, the court rarely raised suspicions that the scandal might have been influenced by outside pressure. Despite the fact that the court should judge objectively in accordance with the evidence, the court included a statement in its verdict suggesting that some outside pressure might have been involved in the case. This particular statement cannot be overlooked, as its indicated that the weaknesses of the prosecution`s investigation.

The court stated that the inspection of the Kwanak branch of the Hanvit Bank was shelved on orders from bank president Lee Soo-Kil, the vice president of the commercial bank, and its manager Lee Chok-Yup, paving the way for the provision of a huge amount of illegal loans to Ark World. The court added that the bank manager`s directions are presumed to have been made on orders from the outside or under outside pressure. As the basis for its judgment, the court pointed out that the ex-vice president of Hanvit Bank had not been influenced by Park Hye-Ryong, president of Ark World.

The court also argued that the bank vice president`s direction to suspend the inspection of its Kwanak branch office could not have been made in the absence of some outside influence. The court pinpointed former culture-tourism minister Park Jie-Won as the man behind the scandal.

The court handed down such an unorthodox ruling on the grounds that in order to shed light on the case, suspicions of outside pressure must be investigated.

The court may have found it difficult to give a more satisfactory judgment due to insufficient investigative records from the prosecution and inconclusive testimony by the defendants. Since the illegal loan scam was uncovered in August last year, the prosecution conducted an incomplete probe, saying there were no substantial evidence and few witnesses. This raised skepticism that the

prosecution`s probe was the focus of outside pressure.

In the face of mounting public criticism of what appeared to be an unfair and prejudicial probe, the prosecution hurriedly announced plans to reinvestigate the scandal but said it held fast to its previous stance that the case was no more than a simple fraud case involving bank officials and businessmen. In the course of the ensuing parliamentary hearing on the scandal, the lawmakers failed to get to the bottom of the case, mainly due to conflicting partisan tactics by the ruling and opposition parties.

As the court pointed out, the illegal bank loan case showed that mismanagement took precedence over the law, favors and secretive directions triumphed over principles and regulations and backdoor dealings were favored over fair business activities. This was clear evidence of the degraded morality of those involved.

All in all, the court`s verdict amounted to a statement that that the truth of scandal was not duly uncovered in the course of the prosecution`s investigation. Now is the time for the prosecution to finish the job. The prosecution needs to shed light on the case from this moment on.