» The apartment complex built at the controversial site of Seoul’s Dogok neighborhood of which former National Tax Service department chief Ahn Won-ku says that he confirmed a document exists that shows the site was owned by President Lee Myung-bak.

A piece of land in Seoul’s Dogok neighborhood has once again become a political tinderbox. The issue is resurfacing two years after the 2007 Grand National Party (GNP) primary where it became the major issue determining the fate of candidates Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.

The problematic pieces of real estate are in Seoul’s Dogok neighborhood and include five addresses that Hyundai Construction Co. purchased in the first half of 1977, when President Lee was president of that company, which include 2,628 square meters at 165 Dogok-dong (bought April 27), 608 square meters at 166-2 Dogok-dong (bought March 25), 893 square meters at 168 Dogok-dong (bought on June 7), 522 square meters at 169 Dogok-dong (bought May 25) and 306 square meters at 169-4 Dogok-dong (bought June 7). These properties were jointly bought in 1985 by Lee’s brother-in-law Kim Jae-jung and older brother Lee Sang-eun at the cost of 1.5 billion Won. Lee was still president of Hyundai Construction at the time.

Some 10 years later, in Sept. of 1995, Kim and Lee sold the land to POSCO Engineering and Construction for 26.3 billion Won. The two men made 24.7 billion Won in marginal profits. Kim, however, was somehow unable to pay a 200 million Won debt after the sale and his home was seized provisionally.

In July 2007, towards the end of the GNP primary campaign, former GNP Chairman Suh Chung-won, an advisor to candidate Park Geun-hye, said that former POSCO Chairman Kim Mahn-je had said Lee Myung-bak, then a lawmaker, had come to him three times in 1993 and 1994 to ask him to purchase the land in the Dogok neighborhood, telling Kim the land belonged to Lee. This raised suspicions that Lee was real owner of that assets, and became the major issue of the primary. In addition, in 1998, POSCO Chairman Kim said during a special audit of POSCO’s management that he believed that the real owner of the Dogok neighborhood properties had been Lee Myung-bak. In 1993, when lawmakers’ property holdings were made public, there were suspicions about the Dogok properties. At the time, several members of the media reported it had been revealed that Lee Myung-bak had hid some 15 billion Won worthy of Dogok neighborhood real estate in his brother-in-law’s name, which would be a violation of the Public Servant Ethics Law and Election Law.

During a vetting hearing for GNP candidates on July 19, 2007, then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak said he had nothing to do with the Dogok land and he received absolutely no money. Denying suspicions, he said it would have been nice if the land were really belonged to him, but does not.

The Seoul Central District Court, which investigated the Dogok neighborhood properties, announced ambiguous interim investigation findings on Aug. 13, 2007, prior to the conclusion of the GNP primary, and stated that money from the Dogok real estate owned by Lee Sang-eun was the property of not Lee Sang-eun but a third party. The court could not say the name of the real owner. Former Lawmaker Lee Jae-oh, who was in the Lee Myung-bak camp, went to high-ranking prosecutors to protest, calling the investigation an attempt to kill Lee Myung-bak’s campaign. Chung Dong-ki, a senior prosecutor with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, responded by saying that the prosecutors’ official position is that there was no evidence to show that the Dogok land belonged to candidate Lee.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]