Paju Mayor Lee Jun-won Commits Suicide by Drowning

Lee Jun-won, the 51-year-old mayor of Paju, Gyeonggi, threw himself into water and drowned yesterday. He had been under internal investigation by prosecution for the charges of accepting a bribe.

The incident occurred at 3:47 p.m. on June 4 when Lee threw himself into the Han River after he was riding in his car, a Dynasty, on the Banpo Bridge from north to south. He had the car stopped at the 25th pier of the bridge and threw himself into the water.

Lee`s body was found within 11 minutes of the suicide around 3:58 p.m. by the police who received an emergency call, and is being kept at Soonchunhyang Hospital.

The police have begun a search operation to find the body of Mr. Lee, the 30-year-old chauffeur of Mayor Lee, who also threw himself into the water with the mayor. The police suspect that he fell into the water while trying to stop the mayor from committing suicide.

Mayor Lee recently has been under the internal investigation of the Goyang branch of the Uijongbu Regional Prosecutors` Office for allegedly accepting 20 million won for doing a favor while establishing the Woongji Accounting and Tax College in Tanhyon-eup, Paju.

The prosecution has already issued an arrest warrant for Park, the town mayor of Tanhyon-eup on June 4 for allegedly accepting 10 million won related to this case. It was planning to summon Lee early next week.

Also, Yeo, director of the construction department of Paju, was summoned to an investigation interview by prosecutors for allegedly making fraudulent official transcripts in regard to the authorization of the college, and Chun, Lee’s head secretary, was summoned as well.

The Woongji Accounting and Tax College received authorization last year and opened this year. It handed the money to key government workers of Paju City Hall to earn the establishment authorization before the construction was over, according to the prosecution.

Lee was in a troubling mindset recently, seeing his close aides going through the investigation, and said, "I have to bear the responsibility," according to his friends.

The prosecution launched a seizure operation in his office that morning, and Lee disappeared with his chauffeur right after attending a children`s drawing competition at Imjingak at 10 a.m. the same day.

Lee graduated from the Seoul National University in Mechanical Engineering and earned a PhD. from University of Texas at Austin. He was a former executive director of INI Steel (formerly Inchon Steel) and Hyundai Motors, and was elected as mayor of Paju in 2002 after his nomination from the Grand National Party.

Lee is the fifth among famous people who have committed suicide recently, with Chung Mong-hun, president of board of directors at Hyundai Asan being the first person last August, followed by Ahn Sang-young, mayor of Busan in February, and Nam Sang-guk, former CEO of Daewoo Construction and Park Tae-young, governor of Chonnam Province in April.

Dong-Young Lee argus@donga.com