Lawmaker Kim Hee-sun Charged With Taking Hundreds of Millions of Won

It was confirmed on February 24 that prosecutors have investigated ruling Uri Party lawmaker Kim Hee-sun and National Grand Party lawmaker Kim Choong-hwan on charges of receiving huge amounts of money.

Second Special Investigation Department of the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Office (director: Nam Ki-choon) is investigating lawmaker Kim Hee-sun after finding clues that she was given money and articles amounting to hundreds of millions of won in June 2002 from a businessman known as “Song,” who was willing to run as a candidate for the district chief of Dongdaemun-Gu.

The prosecution found that lawmaker Kim borrowed 100 million won from Song in the form of issuing a bond of debt around August 2001, but that the entrepreneur gave the bond back to Kim around March or April of next year while asking for support for his nomination by the Millennium Democratic Party as a candidate for the position of headman of a ward.

Prosecutors also obtained a statement from a relevant official that a four-class Cheongwadae staff known as “A” was involved in the case and have banned “A” from leaving the country.

Second Special Investigation Department of the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Office has clues that lawmaker Kim Choong-hwan took tens of millions of won from the head of S Development identified with “Sang” in exchange for the favor of helping the company to get removal work rights for the would-be reconstructed Gangdong-Siyeong apartments, and is looking into the fact. The company is known to specialize in the dismantlement of apartments for reconstruction,

The prosecution has already summoned Kim’s wife and asked why she received the money and returned it after some 20 days, and prosecutors are planning to summon lawmaker Kim to investigate whether the money was for returns or not.

Jin-Young Hwang buddy@donga.com