A piece of paper found on the late Sung Woan-jong, former head of the beleaguered Keangnam Enterprises, and an audio file of a telephone interview with a newspaper Thursday morning before he hung himself from a tree have rocked the nation.
The memo contains a list naming eight politicians, including two former Blue House chiefs of staff, the current chief of staff and the current prime minister, with numbers indicating sums of money next to six of the names. The names and the amount of money in four instances are identical to those revealed in the portions of the audio file containing Sung’s interview with the Kyunghyang Shimun that have been released so far.
In the telephone interview, Sung claimed that he gave some $100,000 to Kim Ki-choon in 2006 before he accompanied President Park Geun-hye ― then head of the Grand National Party, the forerunner to the Saenuri Party ― on a trip to Germany and Belgium, and 700 million won to Huh Tae-yeol in 2007, during Park’s unsuccessful run in the GNP presidential primary. Kim served as Park’s chief of staff from 2013 to February 2015. Huh was Park’s first chief of staff in 2013.
Sung told the newspaper that he gave about 200 million won to Saenuri legislator Hong Moon-jong in 2012 when Hong was in charge of Park’s presidential campaign. Sung also said he gave 100 million won to South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Hong Joon-pyo in 2011 when he was running for the Grand National Party chairman. While everyone on the list protested innocence, a close aid of Hong Joon-pyo admitted to having taken the sum, lending some credence to Sung’s claims.
It is an open secret that businessmen have regularly provided money to politicians, and Sung’s case does not seem to be much different. In the interview, Sung claims that requests for money came from politicians and that he did not voluntarily hand over money. Concerning the sum given to Hong Moon-jong, Sung alleged that the money would have been spent on the presidential election and said that it was not entered into the books. If true, this would be in violation of the political funds law whose statute of limitation is seven years. On the other hand, the statute of limitation for bribes of more than 100 million won is 10 years.
Oddly, the major opposition party New Politics Alliance for Democracy has been rather restrained in its reaction to the latest expose. Given that businessmen usually provide money to both ruling and opposition parties as a form of insurance, it is not difficult to imagine that some members of the NPAD may have received money from Sung as well. In fact, Sung received pardons on two occasions during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.
On Friday, Prosecutor General Kim Jin-tae ordered an investigation into the memo and a review of the legal principles involved. In a press conference Sunday, Saenuri Party chairman Kim Moo-sung called on the prosecutors to conduct a speedy and thorough investigation, warning that the country must not get mired by the incident.
While Kim may desire a quick end to the sordid mess, speed should not be a priority in the investigation. The investigation should be thorough and strict. Those who are guilty should not be allowed to get away on legal technicalities. Anything less than a thorough and transparent investigation will result in the prosecutors losing any remaining public trust in the organization often criticized as pandering to the wishes of the ruling authorities.
It would have been presidential of Park herself to call on the prosecutors to conduct a thorough probe. Several of Sung’s allegations point toward Park as the beneficiary of the payments and such an order from Park would set the prosecutors free to hold a no-holds-barred investigation.
