[Editorial] President Kim Should See the `Core of Suspicion`

President Kim Dae-Jung is going to preside over an economy minister`s meeting at Cheong Wa Dae this morning. This is the first official meeting since he came back from Europe five days ago. The major topic is going to be economic issues including measures against the unemployment of the young people. People are interested in today`s talk not simply because of the `President`s talk` on economic issues. What we hear the most these days are only stories of corruption in relation to various scandals. Even the former vice Justice Minister Shin Kwang-Ok, who was the former head presidential secretary, is suspected of being involved in a corruption case. Thus, it seems natural that President should talk about issues to which people are paying attention regardless of the purpose of the meeting.

In relation to the `Jin Seong-Hyun Gate`, the prosecution plans to summon the former vice Justice Minister Shin early this week following the arrestment of Choi Taek-Gon, a former vice chair of the education committee of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP). However, as this editorial section has already pointed out, the point of this case is not to find out how much Mr. Choi gave to the former vice Justice Minister Shin after receiving money from Mr. Jin, and whether this is `fraud` as Shin has insisted. The essence of this case is that the nation`s central organizations, including Cheong Wa Dae, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the prosecution, are suspected of being involved in the collective corruption. Moreover, as the involvement of Rep. Kim Hong-Il, President Kim`s eldest son, was reported, people are paying attention to what is the core of suspicion.

According to the report, the prosecution, which launched the reinvestigation of the `Jin Seong-Hyun Gate`, regards this case as the `National Intelligence Gate`. It is said that the prosecution has a `strong belief` that the former second director of the NIS Kim Eun-Sung obstructed the progress of investigation by threatening the core powerful members with the false list last year, and he intentionally leaked the bribery information of the politicians including the former vice Justice Minister Shin when Kim began to be caught in the police dragnet. This is to say that the core powerful members, who were on the `false list`, pressed the prosecution yielding to Kim`s threat, and the prosecution ambiguously finished the investigation.

However, we don`t think this is the end. Although the prosecution has such a strong belief, the core issue is to find out the major political figure who obstructed the progress of investigation after being threatened by Kim. The prosecution should make clear who gave the pressure and what kind of pressure it has received, and why it could not investigate properly. People`s suspicion will still remain if the prosecution focuses on a particular person without revealing these issues.