List of Politicians for GMC`s Lobbying

A team of prosecutors at Seoul District Prosecutors` Office, investigating an alleged corruption scandal regarding Goodmorning City (GMC), a shopping mall, secured the fact that there existed a “lobby list”, in which Yoon Chan-yeol, representative president of GMC and now under arrest, wrote down the names of political figures Yoon bribed along with the amounts of money delivered.

Prosecutors are doubling their efforts to secure the list, which they believe will be a crucial clue for the investigation.

Prosecutors are now closely examining Mr. Kang since a person involved testified that Kang, director of GMC`s Mok-po branch had kept the list in the form of a computer file.

Kang, known as a friend and business partner to Yoon, disappeared right after the investigation started, and has recently been under question from prosecutors.

Apart from the lobby list, prosecutors are reportedly investigating into a claim of another list of political figures, which Yoon by himself made.

In the meantime, prosecutors applied for an arrest warrant against Kim In-dong (68), secretary general at the association of members of Seoul Metropolitan Council. Kim is charged of taking bribes from Yoon and asking a favor from Seoul Metropolitan Government for granting business license to Yoon.

Kim served as a manager of internal affairs at Seoul Metropolitan City Government and Chief of Gwanak-gu Office during 1980s and headed Olympic organization bureau and planning bureau at Seoul City government before he was elected as a council member of Seoul Metropolitan Council in 1991.

Prosecutors consider a possibility of Kim`s comprehensive lobbying since his political career was wide to include presidential aid in both ruling and opposite parties from 1995 to 1997, head in regional sub-division of party, chief secretary to a party president, and chief advisor to a presidential candidate, etc.

Reportedly, the prosecution office plans to issue a subpoena to Rep. Chyung Dae-chul of the ruling New Millennium Democratic Party.

Myoung-Gun Lee gun43@donga.com jefflee@donga.com