hankyoreh

In a press interview two days ago, former Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Central Investigation Department chief Lee In-kyu opened up on the issue of a bank account allegedly registered to the late former President Roh Moo-hyun under an assumed name. Lee said that the allegations by Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) Commissioner Cho Hyun-oh were “neither correct nor incorrect.”
Lee stated, “I don’t know that you would exactly call it a slush fund under a false-name account, but if there was actually a strange flow of money, then calling it that is not wrong, either.”

In other words, there was no hard evidence of a false-name account, but there was activity that provoked suspicions.
Based on Lee’s account, Cho had no basis whatsoever for saying that the former president “died because a false-named account had been discovered the day before.”

By saying so, he deliberately spread false information, acting as though a false-named account existed and he himself knew about it. Since this has now been confirmed by someone with working-level responsibility for the investigation, there is no longer any obstacle to taking action against Cho for libelous statements defaming the character of a deceased individual.

A separate issue is the impropriety of Lee’s making reference to “a strange flow of money” during his interview. If there really was such a flow of money, that is confidential investigation information. In any ordinary case, his remark would be considered the official announcement of allegations that have not yet been verified. A large part of the responsibility for Roh reaching the point of taking his own life last year stems from the open humiliation and pressure he endured when allegations and circumstantial information that only the prosecutors could have known were leaked by certain news outlets. One cannot help asking why an investigator who cannot be free from responsibility for this himself is now repeating the same kind of behavior.

Indeed, Lee was denounced by the National Assembly after he failed to appear when selected to testify at Cho’s nomination hearing. In his interview, he claimed that neither the ruling party nor the opposition wanted him to appear. He also said that a currently active opposition party politician received at least $10,000 from former Taekwang Industrial Chairman Park Yeon-cha, and he was fired because he attacked “living power.”

Regardless of whether these claims are true, it comes across as a mixture of threats and bargaining directed at the ruling and opposition parties.
We can no longer stand by and watch this obscuring of the truth, which does nothing to alleviate suspicions. Lee must immediately state both clearly and openly. And if a special prosecutor’s investigation is not possible, the ruling and opposition parties should at least hold a meeting of the National Assembly‘s standing committee and call Lee as a witness to determine the facts of the situation. If, in the process, information comes to light about currently active politicians taking money or engaging in corruption, it is only right that they should be punished.
　　
Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]