Illegal Campaign Funds Estimated at About 6 Billion Won


By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

President Roh Moo-hyun held a closed-door hotel meeting in November last year, after which his key aide Lee Kwang-jae took 100 million won in campaign funds from Sun & Moon chairman Moon Byung-wook, prosecutors said on Monday.

Roh, Lee, Moon and a bank manager who is from the same high school as Roh, attended the meeting, which prosecutors suspect was intended to raise election funds.

Moon also gave 30 million won to Yeo Tae k-soo, one of Roh’s campaign managers, in the presence of Roh during a meeting at a hotel in Kimhae, South Kyongsnag Province, in December 2002. Yeo now works as a Chong Wa Dae official.

Moon, now in custody for making illegal donations to political parties, was later invited to a dinner in the presidential office of Chong Wa Dae in January, when Roh was a president-elect, the prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said they have found that the election funds that Roh’s campaign team collected from businesses during the presidential race last year amounts to about 6 billion won.

The findings may bring additional rounds of bitter political bickering over Roh’s promise that he would step down if his campaign team collected more than one-tenth of the political funds than the opposition Grand National Party did during last year’s election.

The GNP is known to have taken about 50 billion won in campaign donations from only the country’s top five conglomerates.

Roh also allegedly ordered his aides to use election funds last year to pay debts of Sun Bong-sul, former chairman of a mineral water firm once owned by the President.

``It appears to be certain that, to some extent, President Roh should be held responsible (for the illegal spending of the election funds),’’ prosecutor Ahn Dai-hui told reporters as he announces the outcome of the prosecution investigation into corruption allegations involving Roh’s aides.

Roh allegedly ordered 250 million won stashed in the account of his election camp in Pusan to be paid to Sun and a regional businessman for the redemption of the debts they incurred while running the water firm, Changsuchon.

The president also gave a go-ahead for a real estate deal last year, which resulted in the settlement of the firm’s debts, according to the prosecution. Choi Do-sul and Ahn Hee-jung, two of Roh’s close confidents, reported about the deal to Roh, but Roh didn’t try to block the dubious transaction, prosecutors said.

Concluding its months-long investigation into illegal fundraising by the Roh camp during the presidential race last December, the prosecution on Monday indicted the four former aides to Roh _ Choi, Ahn, Sun and Lee _ and four other men on charges of violating election fund laws.

Prosecution sources said clues suggest Roh was not free from responsibility, saying he could have been directly involved in the illegal transaction. If Roh’s role is confirmed during an independent counsel probe to be launched next month, he could face criminal charges after stepping down from the office in 2008. The incumbent President is immune from indictment for any criminal charges, expect charges related to treason and civil war.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr