New Prosecutor-General Says What Really Exists

“Based on the stringent rule of evidence and exact judgment of the law, the prosecution will clearly say what exist is existent and what doesn’t exist is non-existent,” said new Prosecutor-General Lim Chai-jin (55) over the principles of the investigation into the BBK stock manipulation scandal in his inauguration speech on Monday.

With these remarks, he seemed to make clear his firm intention to get to the bottom of the case. He had in mind the controversy over the prosecution’s ambiguous remarks in August on the identity of the real owner of the valuable plot in Dogok-dong involving Grand National Party presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak. At the time, the prosecution said, “The land seems to be in the possession of a third person.”

Lim said to reporters after the inauguration ceremony that he often uses the expression, “What exist is existent and what doesn’t exist is non-existent” when requesting junior prosecutors to conduct thorough investigations. He also emphasized that, “the upcoming election will be a test for the prosecution whether it is fair and impartial.”

However, he stopped short of releasing when the investigation results will come out, and only said that, “considering the public was keenly watching the case, we will carry out as fair and speedy an investigation as possible.”

In the meantime, the special investigation team of the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office led by prosecutor Choi Jae-gyeong added a couple of prosecutors with English proficiency to the team given that the documents and contracts submitted by Kim Gyeong-jun are written in English. They will analyze the documents and translate them into Korean at an early date.

The prosecution is focusing its attention not only on verifying the authenticity of the Korean contract, saying, “GNP candidate Lee sold BBK stocks to Kim Gyeong-jun in February 2000,” but it is also putting effort into analyzing the English contracts and documents that were additionally put forward by Kim.

The move is based on the prosecution’s judgment that Kim is an elite who graduated from prestigious universities including Cornell University, and that as most of the company’s documents and contracts were written in English, an accurate interpretation of them will lead to how the contract in question was drawn up.

In the past, for an investigation involving disgraced Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-seok and another regarding the alleged Lone Star’s purchase of Korea Exchange Bank at giveaway prices, the prosecution also dispatched prosecutors with a good command of English to deal with a pile of English documents.

In the meantime, sources of the prosecution sector predict that the investigation results will be released earlier than December 5, which is the final date that the arrest warrant allows the prosecution to detain Kim. That prediction is convincing given that the new leadership is determined to make speed in the probe by beefing up the team, and that politicians are putting pressure on the prosecution for a speedy release of the results.

On prosecution official said that, “dragging on the investigation was not in the interest of the prosecution.”

That being said, a considerable number of experts say that it’s difficult to predict the exact date of the release because it takes time to analyze and translate English documents and that there is a possibility for Kim to submit additional documents to the prosecution.

needjung@donga.com will71@donga.com