Additional Politicians Accepted Illegal Funds from Sun & Moon

On December 18th the Central Investigation Bureau at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office said that it recently summoned and investigated Shin Sang-woo, vice-president of the Democratic and Peace Unification party, on charges of accepting 20 million won from Sun & Moon Group during the presidential election.

The prosecution obtained a statement from an individual at Sun & Moon saying that they had provided the funds to several other politicians of the ruling and opposition parties. The prosecution is currently in the process of verifying this.

According to the prosecution, Kim Sung nae, the former vice-president of Sun & Moon stated, “Last year I recommended president Moon give financial support to politicians. Accordingly, President Moon took charge of the MDP while I provided the funds to representatives of the GNP and other chairmen of district party leadership outside the party.”

The prosecution said that it is now tracing approximately 100 official and unofficial bank accounts, which were under the control of both the GNP and MDP camps before and after the presidential election.

The prosecution also found clues while tracing the bank accounts that approximately 10 politicians of both parties had used the funds privately or accumulated them unduly and is now extending the investigation in to this as well.

The prosecution plans to summon and investigate politicians under the suspicion of using the funds personally on December 20. Regarding scandals around President Roh, the prosecution will collectively charge Choi Do-sul, the former close aid to the president, Kang Keum-won, the chairman of Changshin Textile Inc. and chairman Moon with a crime.

The prosecution said that the amount of the funds that Mr. Choi accepted from four corporations in Busan in addition to 1.1 billion won from SK, amounts to hundreds of million won.

The prosecution is also considering summoning Lee Ki-myoung, the head of the aid association for candidate Roh, since it observed a suspicious situation in the financing flow of water-bottling firm Jangsuchun Inc. in which President Roh was involved.

Next week the prosecution plans to summon Rep. Kim Yung-il who was the chief of general affairs for the election polling committee and the general secretary of the GNP during last presidential election.

Tae-Hoon Lee Jin-Kyun Kil jefflee@donga.com leon@donga.com