hankyoreh

President Park Geun-hye

The Hankyoreh has confirmed that President Park Geun-hye called her former personal secretary Jung Ho-seong (who is now in jail and facing charges) not only on the official Blue House work phone assigned to Jung but also on burner phones that he had acquired separately. Jung had set up the burner phones primarily to talk to Choi Sun-sil (who is also in jail and facing charges), and a large number of recordings have been found of conversations in which Choi gave instructions about how to run the government.

Phone numbers listed with the initials “P” and “S” frequently appear in the call logs on Jung’s burner phones, which were acquired by the team of investigators led by Special Prosecutor Park Young-soo.

Jung told prosecutors who were questioning him that “S” stood for Choi Sun-sil and that “P” stood for President Park. The logs on Jung’s burner phones reportedly also contain records of conversations with Blue House secretaries and administrative staff including Ahn Bong-geun, Lee Jae-man, Lee Yeong-seon and Yun Jeon-chu.

When the prosecutors raided Jung’s residence on Oct. 29, 2016, they seized eight mobile phones and one tablet computer. The catch included three burner phones that Jung cycled through, using them to call Choi. “I felt a little awkward using the mobile phone under my own name, so I borrowed the names of my friends to create burner phones,” Jung reportedly said during his questioning by the special prosecutor.

The special prosecutor’s team is focusing on the fact that Jung used the burner phones to talk to Park. There is no legitimate reason for Park to call her secretary on a burner phone instead of on his official phone during work hours. Since these burner phones also contain records of phone calls with former secretaries Lee Jae-man and Ahn Bong-geun and with former administrative officials Lee Yeong-seon and Yun Jeon-chu, the special prosecutor believes that not only Jung but also the “doorknob triumvirate” were aware of Choi’s existence and were complicit in her government interference.

Making a burner phone under someone else’s name is a blatant crime designed to prevent one’s phone calls from being tracked. Furthermore, the Blue House is a major target of cyberattacks by North Korea. For this reason, the National Intelligence Service has taken the lead in providing secure phones to senior government officials, including those in the Blue House, since early 2014. But the president and her key aides were using illegal burner phones for secret phone conversations with a shadowy figure.

In a related story, the special prosecutor’s team, which is currently investigating the Choi Sun-sil scandal, called in Cheil Worldwide President Lim Dae-gi, 61, on the afternoon of Jan. 6 to give testimony in connection with bribery allegations against Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, 49. Cheil Worldwide gave more than 1.6 billion won in funding to the Korea Winter Sports Elite Center (run by Jang Si-ho, 38, niece of Choi Sun-sil, 61, both of whom are in jail facing charges), but it turned out that the actual source of this money was Samsung Electronics.

The special prosecutor’s team is questioning Lim in order to determine if Lee was involved in the funding. The team is also looking into allegations that Park was bribed by other chaebol (including SK and the Lotte Group) in addition to Samsung Electronics.

After acquiring evidence that Choi Kyung-hee, 55, former president of Ewha Womans University, and others committed perjury during a hearing before the National Assembly, the special prosecutor’s team asked the National Assembly’s special investigative committee to file a complaint. The team is also considering whether to request an arrest warrant for Namgung Gon, former director of admissions at the university, in connection with allegations about the unfair admission of Jung Yu-ra, daughter of Choi Sun-sil.

By Seo Young-ji and Kim Jeong-pil, staff reporters

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