Lee Soon-ja’s Brother Will Soon Be Summoned

The central criminal investigation department of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ahn Dae-hee, Chief Prosecutor) announced captured evidence consisting of an inflow of an amount of money, which is considered to be a slush fund of Chun Doo-hwan, a former president, to Lee Chang-sok, a brother of Chun’s wife Lee Soon-ja. The court will soon summon Lee.

In the investigation into Chun’s slush fund, the prosecution confirmed that 10.2 billion won, which Lee Soon-ja managed as a 10 million-won bond, and 13 billion won, including 2.8 billion won that Lee entrusted with or gave to relatives, are in large part overlapped with 20.6 billion won, which is the amount of the suspected slush fund of Chun.

In particular, 2 billion won out of 13 billion won managed by Lee is related to a slush fund that Chun managed during his term of office, the prosecution announced.

During the investigation of Lee, the prosecution forced Chun to return the 13 billion won in question to the government as a form of payment by proxy of the former president’s money collected in addition.

In addition, according to the prosecution, 7.6 billion won, the rest of money, will be paid by proxy, through collections from relatives.

The prosecution is investigating allegations that Lee managed the funds before anti-money laundering laws took affect on November 27, 2001.

If the prosecution succeeds in confirming this fact, a criminal prosecution would become possible. The prosecution is also investigating whether Chun’s report to the court that he has just 290,0000 won left in his bank account, regarding the case of a request of a clear statement of property, is true or not.

jin0619@donga.com