Criminal Punishment to be Inflicted on Chun Jae-yong

The Central Investigation Agency of the Supreme Public Prosecutors’ Office summoned ex-President Chun Doo-hwan’s second son Chun Jae-yong on the morning of February 5. They are investigating the source and use of a 13 billion won fund that Chun Jae-Young possesses.

Particularly, the prosecutor made the intensified investigation into whether that money was part of a slush fund that is alleged to be kept by Chun.

With regard to this, it was reported that Jae-yong said, “I received the money from my maternal grandfather who died in 2001.” The prosecutor does not trust what he said.

The prosecutor will forfeit all this money and make an additional charge in case the fund, which includes housing bonds of 10 billion won deposited in a borrowed name account in 2001, is ascertained to be Chun’s slush money.

Making an allowance for Chun Jae-yong’s inability to make such a huge amount of money in moral way, the prosecutor is considering inflicting a criminal punishment on Jae-yong, even if the source of the money is not identified, on the suspicion of evading a donation tax.

Chun Jae-yong’s old car, a “Concord” which has not been produced since 1997, caught people’s eyes when he came to the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office in Seocho, Seoul at 10 a.m. on this day.

He headed toward the investigation room with his hat over his eyebrows giving no comments to news reporters who asked questions about the source of the money and so on.

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