Conglomerates Provided One Billion Won in Unregistered Bonds to GNP During Presidential Election

The Central Investigation Bureau at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office said on December 30 that it is tracing the whereabouts of the bonds after verifying that the Grand National Party (GNP) accepted unregistered bonds worth billion won from one of the top 10 conglomerates during the last presidential election.

The prosecution is investigating the possibility that the involved party member held onto the funds without using them as election funds because the bonds provided by the company were not changed to cash in spite of their expiration in October and November of this year.

The prosecution is also tracing the usage of the funds as it assesses whether 11.2 billion won in bonds that Seo Jung-woo, a former legal advisor to Lee Hoi-chang of the GNP, accepted from Samsung and provided to the party were spent after the election or remain unspent at present.

The prosecution confirmed that 506 million won out of 600 million won that Ahn Hee-jung, a close aide to President Roh, had paid on the account of Kang Keum-won, the chairman of Changshin Textile Ltd., from March to August of this year were paid by check. Hence the prosecution is investigating whether this fund was congratulatory money for the election.

In particular, the prosecution verified the fact that Mr. Ahn accepted funds from different people 43 separate times in an A building in Yoido at the end of last year and is evaluating the propriety of accepting 600 million won of these funds in an underground parking lot.

The prosecution plans to summon beginning next week the supreme leaders of major conglomerates and the heads of restructuring headquarters that have turned out to have been involved in providing illicit funds to both ruling and opposition parties during last year’s presidential election.

The prosecution also is considering summoning SK chairman Sohn Kil-seung early on January 5 next year and a plan to investigate whether he had provided 10 billion won to the GNP. It also plans to summon and investigate Choi Tae-won, the chairman SK Group in charge of the window dressing of SK Shipping.

The prosecution is also supposed to summon and investigate the top leaders or heads of restructuring headquarters of Samsung, LG, and Hyundai Motor early on January 12 next year.

It has been said that the prosecution informed Rep. Kim Young-il, the former chief of the GNP election polling committee, to attend the prosecution on January 5, 2004, after uncovering indications that he had ordered Rep. Choi Don-woong, the then-chief of financing affairs of the party, to raise additional funds from some corporations including Samsung prior to the presidential election.

Wi-Yong Jung viyonz@donga.com