Investigation into Jung Dae-chul’s Alleged Fund Raising of 20 Billion Won

On October 6, related to the campaign funds used by Roh Moo-hyun in the last presidential election, Mun Hyo-nam, an investigation planning prosecutor in the central investigation department of the supreme public prosecutors office, said, “We have something to check by summoning Jung Dae-chul because he mentioned the campaign fund of 20 billion won which led the press to express its suspicions.”

Mun added, “In the case of Jung, we received additional clues about the illegal fund raising in addition to the suspicions presented by the press.”

Accordingly, it was reported that the prosecution will summon Jung to investigate whether he raised a 20 billion won fund or whether he received the campaign fund illegally.

Last July, before being summoned on the suspicion of accepting 400 million won from the former representative of “Good Morning City’s” Yun Chang-yeol, Jung said, “The amount of the campaign fund that I received at last year’s presidential election was about 20 billion won,” but later reversed his remark as it created a stir.

The prosecutor also summoned Lee Sang-soo, head official of the election polling committee at the time of the presidential election, on the suspicion of accepting one billion won from SK, in order to investigate whether he managed the illegal fund with an account using another name.

In addition to this, seizures were made, and the houses of three people, including a former GNP financial official Lee Jae-hyun, who carried 10 billion won from SK to the headquarter of Grand National Party, and two executive members of the financial bureau, Kong Ho-sik and Bong Jong-gun, who disobeyed the summons, were searched.

From this point on, when the prosecutor obtains clues to a conglomerate’s paying a huge amount of money from an account during the investigation into the campaign fund account of parties, it will follow the account of the conglomerate concerned in order to verify the source.

In regards to the Federation of Korean Industries’ request for a wholesale pardon for the illegal conduct concerned with the political fund, the prosecutor said, “We still have the keynote to reduce or exempt conglomerates from their responsibilities, in the range that the criminal law permits, when they confess their illegal provisions of fund and cooperates in investigations.” It is also considering postponement of criminal charges or prosecution without physical restraint for conglomerates who cooperate in investigations.

In addition, at a meeting of Our Party’s committee members on the morning of that day, Lee Sang-soo acknowledged that he managed an informal account separate from the election polling committee and said, “Lee Hwa-young, an aide who collected money for practical needs at the time of the presidential election last year, opened a practical business account.”

He also revealed that they used 12 accounts, including informal ones, saying, “We used 11 accounts altogether including the ones that the election polling committee of the Millennium Democratic Party used when it started in September of last year and the ones of supporters association.” He said, “We used seven accounts” showing the campaign fund of last year’s presidential election on July 23 when he was secretary-general of the Millennium Democratic Party.

He explained in relevance to the informal account, “Usually it was sent from the account of the supporters association of each region to the headquarters of the party in the provincial branch offices, but it was put into a practical business account for urgent cases and we kept an accurate account later.”