Kang Kum-won Put Under Criminal Punishment For His Violation of Political Fund Law

On December 1, the central investigation team at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s office re-summoned the alleged financier for the current president, Kang Kum-won (who is also the chairman of Changshin Textile in Busan), and announced that they would put him under criminal punishment for violating a law relating to political funding.

The investigation team has reportedly captured some tangible evidence for his violation of the law after searching his house and company on November 18.

The prosecution plans to conduct a thorough interrogation against Kang and if the allegation proves to be true, such counts as the violation of the political fund law and misappropriation would be applied to him. In such cases, the prosecution might issue an arrest warrant.

Chief investigator, Moon Hyo-nam, said on December 1, “A specific level of punishment for Kang will be decided upon by tomorrow.”

The prosecution also interrogated him against the process where he withdrew two billion won from his corporate account at the end of the last month in order to lend money to President Roh Moon-hyun and received the two billion won back at a later period.

Along with this, the prosecution also investigated the backgrounds and the related details, including its sources, for the illegal 950 million won provided to President Roh’s friend, Sun Bong-sul (who was also the previous CEO of Jangsoochun), four times in total including the months of November and December in 2002. The investigation team plans to summon up Sun at 11 a.m. on December 2.

The prosecution transferred the case requested by the Grand National Party (GNP) to the Felony Investigation Team.

They also secretly summoned up former senior advisor of Samsung Fire, Soh Byung-hae, to investigate about the illegal political funding incidence during the previous election. The prosecution interrogated him about the process where Soh provided 100 million won worth of fund to the MDP using his own private account and the source of the fund.

The prosecution will also summon up GNP members, Choi Don-woong and Kim Young-il, next week to further investigate about the case.

Wi-Yong Jung Tae-Hoon Lee viyonz@donga.com jefflee@donga.com