hankyoreh

Former president Lee Myung-bak

Testimony by former president Lee Myung-bak’s closest associates is gradually backing him into a corner. While he has dodged numerous allegations over the past few years, there is reason to think he won’t be able to escape from the prosecutors’ current investigation.

Former National Intelligence Service (NIS) Strategic Coordination Chief Kim Ju-seong, 71, who reportedly testified that Lee had known about the diversion of money from the NIS’s special activity fund, has been regarded as one of Lee’s most trusted confidantes. The prosecutors have acquired testimony that Kim – who was the NIS treasurer who personally delivered money to the Blue House – told Lee about the diversion of funds during a private meeting.

“After Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, he paid more attention to appointing the NIS Strategic Coordination Chief than the NIS Director, personally choosing Kim Ju-seong for the job,” said a key figure in Lee’s presidential campaign. In 2005, while Lee was mayor of Seoul, he named Kim, who had previously been vice chairman of the Kolon Group, to serve as president of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, which Seoul has jurisdiction over. The fact that Lee tapped this former businessman to serve in an unfamiliar field shows the extent of Lee’s trust in him.

Soon after having an NIS budget official hand over 200 million won (US$188,000) in cash to then-Blue House General Affairs Secretary Kim Baek-jun, 78, in 2008, Kim Ju-seong took the unusual step of requesting a meeting with Lee, a meeting that the prosecutors believe actually took place. In effect, the deposition by one of Lee’s most trusted aides has left him with no choice but to provide a personal explanation of these matters.

As for the accusations that Lee is the real owner of DAS, the Hankyoreh has confirmed that Kim Seong-woo, the former DAS president who is believed to have been Lee’s proxy at the company, gave the prosecutors a deposition in which he admits that DAS was set up on Lee’s orders. While Lee was chairman of Hyundai Engineering and Construction between 1977 and 1988, Kim was a key aide who served for eight years as director of the funding department.

During investigations by the prosecutors and the special prosecutor in 2007 and 2008, Kim repeatedly testified that DAS was unconnected with Lee, and this was the key grounds behind the prosecutors’ and the special prosecutor’s conclusion DAS did not belong to Lee. But now that Kim has reversed his testimony, the prosecutors’ investigation of the creation of a slush fund in excess of 12 billion won (US$11.2 million) at DAS and DAS’s recovery of a 14 billion won (US$13.1 million) investment from Kim Gyeong-jun is entering a new phase.

Additionally, a former senior executive at DAS surnamed Kwon, one of the people who signed off on the creation of the slush fund, has submitted a confession of his own that is similar to Kim Seong-u’s. The prosecutors are nearing the point where they can no longer delay questioning Lee in person.

Even former NIS director Won Sei-hoon, who has doggedly refused to talk about any connection with Lee, even while behind bars for his role in the 2013 investigation into the NIS’s meddling in the presidential election, has reportedly admitted that money was secretly delivered to the Blue House during Lee’s presidency. In other words, the puzzle pieces of the various allegations swirling around Lee are being put together thanks to the testimony of his closest associates.

By Kim Yang-jin, staff reporter

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