Chairman Park Yeon-cha Gave Billions of Won in Illegal Campaign Fund

The Central Investigation Agency of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office gathered evidence that Park Yeon-cha, 49, CEO & Chairman of Tae Kwang Ind. Co. Ltd., gave billions of won in campaign fund to the Roh Moo-hyun camp and the Grand National Party (GNP) during the 2002 presidential election. The prosecution will summon Mr. Park this week to investigate whether or not the money was illegal political funds.

The prosecution announced that Park has been banned from leaving the country since last December after it secured physical evidence from the bank accounts of the Roh camp and the GNP.

Mr. Park bought land and a villa from Min Sang-cheol, 40, a brother-in-law of the president’s brother Roh Geon-pyeong in May 2002. Mr. Park’s daughter once worked for Cheong Wa Dae right after the launch of the new government. He also was a member of the financial committee in the GNP from 2000 until recently.

The prosecution, this afternoon, followed up on Kim Yeong-cheol, lawmaker from the GNP, on whether or not he ordered lawmaker Choi Don-woong to collect an additional campaign fund from major corporations including Samsung and if he held a party meeting to discuss ways to collect campaign fund from corporations.

Kim Yeong-cheol persistently denied all of his charges.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor’s office will summon Sohn Kil-seung, president of SK Group, and Choi Tae-won, president of SK Corporation, to investigate how they collected 200 billion won in slush fund and where they spent it.

They will be criminally punished with the charge of dereliction of duty if they are confirmed to have used the fund for foreign futures investment. Prosecution officials said that Mr. Choi might not be summoned as a witness, hinting that he could also be criminally punished.

On this, Sohn Kil-seung denied the charges saying, “I have never misappropriated the public fund of SK Shipping to myself.”

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