Former Rep. Shin Sang-woo Summoned

As the 17th general election has been wrapped up, the investigation of the prosecution against politicians who are involved in illegal political fund cases has resumed in earnest.

It has been disclosed that the central investigation body of the supreme prosecution office is investigating Lee Jung-kuen, the chairman of a medium standing construction company in Buyoung, as they grasped the clue that he gave a 50 million won bribe to President Roh’s presidential election campaign back in 2002.

The prosecution has traced clues back to a certain Choi, one of the MDP’s former leaders, which implicate him for receiving the bribe, and decided to summon Choi in the near future.

In addition, the prosecution has summoned the restricted Rep. Jung Dae-chul of the Open Uri Party, who took charge as election committee leader during the presidential campaign period in 2002, and will make a close inquiry as to whether he received the illegal fund from Buyoung and if so, what he has spent the money on.

In accordance with the intelligence that Buyoung has also delivered illegal funds to the Grand National Party, the prosecution is making confirmations with the GNP.

Together with this, the prosecution has summoned former Rep. Shin Sang-woo on this day and investigated him. The former Rep. Shin, who was once the chief executive of Roh’s presidential election camp, has come under suspicion of receiving 150 million won worth of illegal political funds from the chairman of Lotte Shopping, Shin Dong-in, from 2000 to 2003.

“We will summon two to three politicians who have run for this election,” remarked Ahn Dae-hee, the chief of the supreme prosecution office’s investigation body.

The prosecution has also decided to call up the politicians who have been elected in the latest 17th general election, such as the United Liberal Democrats’ Lee In-je, who has fallen under suspicion of receiving 250 million won in illegal funds from the Grand National Party at the beginning of the summons.

The second special department of the Seoul Central Office of Prosecution has decided to issue a warrant against the Millennium Democratic Party’s Rep. Han Hwa-gap again, who is under the suspicion of receiving a 400 million won bribe from the SK Group back in the spring of 2002 under the name of the fund for the MDP”s presidential candidate vote.

On the other hand, the central investigation body of the supreme prosecution office has disclosed that they are investigating the Dong-bu Group, which is under suspicion of illegally conducting internal transactions in its selling of 250,000 shares of stock of Dong-bu CC, one of the branch companies of the Dong-bu Group, at the price of one won per a stock in order to turn over the right of possession to the Dong-bu Group’s chairman Kim Joon-ki.

At the earliest, the prosecution will summon Kim to thoroughly investigate whether he is involved in the illegal internal transaction and bribe delivery cases, and prosecute him if his accusations should be confirmed as positive.

jin0619@donga.com