High-level Military Officials Linked to Corruption

On May 12, the Third Special Department of Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Office (Chief: Gwak Sang-do) considered a measure to summon and investigate three former generals, including the former commander of the Marine Corps, in order to investigate their suspicion of misappropriating a considerable sum of the relevant military corps’ official fund.

Based on the data connected with the suspicion of corruption concerning the suspects, the prosecution is known to have conducted the investigation by undergoing a secret means of self-examination.

The prosecution believes that a considerable number of the high-level military officials, who are on service, are also closely involved in the misappropriation and embezzlement of the relevant military corps’ official budget and profits gathered from welfare services, weighing up on the measure of conducting the joint-investigation with the military prosecution. The former Marine Corps commander has also been revealed to be under suspicion for taking bribes to manipulate the personnel management from his subordinate military officers.

On the other hand, the prosecution has recently indicted and arrested the chief of Johnson Korea, Lee, and Daesan Corporation, Kim, under suspicion of giving bribes to the military officers while supplying military commodities such as parachute and mountain helmets to the Special Warfare Forces’ Command, and expanded their line of investigation to four to five other military logistics companies. In regards to receiving the government and military corps related construction orders, the prosecution has pointed out that Daekyo Construction has systematically lobbied the Ministry of National Defense and the other military corps, so it arrested Cho, the chief of the company and concentrated its investigation on whether or not he had done additionally lobbying. According to the prosecution, Cho handed over approximately 30 million won for the price of receiving convenience and construction orders to people including the former chief of National Defense Facility Center, Brigadier General Park, who was in charge of the engineering department of a certain Army Command in 2002.

Sang-Rok Lee myzodan@donga.com