Summonses Start this Week for Company Officials on Charges of Illegal Election Funds

The central investigation center of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office announced on Sunday its plans for this coming Tuesday to summon and investigate Kim In-joo, president of Samsung Group’s restructuring department, who is suspected of illegal presidential election fundraising.

The prosecution will also summon Samsung’s restructuring department vice president Lee Hak-soo; SK Group president Choi Tae-won; LG Group vice president Kang Yoo-shik; Hyundai Car vice president Kim Dong-jin; and Lotte Shopping president Shin Dong-in, in relation to handing over illegal election funds.

The prosecution is tracking down 15 billion bonds out of a total of 28.2 billion bonds handed over to Grand National Party (GNP) by Samsung that it suspects were not converted to cash.

Although the GNP insists, “we gave back bonds worth 17 billion,” the prosecution announced that the bonds were not given back, according to the statements made by lawyer Seo Jung-woo and others.

On Saturday, the prosecution summoned Kim Jung-kil, former minister of the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, now a standing member of the Uri Party, to investigate the details in the raising and handing over 200 million dollars during the presidential election to the former president’s general affairs manager Choi Do-sul.

Meanwhile, in relation to the suspicions about loan company GoodMoney of handing over illegal election funds, the prosecution has decided that it would re-summon Kim Jin-hee on Monday, who first exposed the suspicion at the Assembly hearing after its first summoning last Saturday.

A related prosecution official said, “although we summoned and investigated Kim, we could not obtain more information than what was already relayed at the hearing,” adding “she also did not say anything about the recorded tape,” (which is said to have information related to illegal political funds).

The prosecution has formed an exclusive arrest group in order to obtain custody of Kim Young-hun, former representative of GoodMoney, who has currently disappeared.

In addition, the prosecution is also tracking down 54.4 billion that GoodMoney deceptively borrowed from Kimchun Sangho Bank, and is trying to figure out whether any of the funds are politically related.

Wi-Yong Jung viyonz@donga.com