According to the prosecutors, Kang said he lent Seon Bong-sul W950 million, but Kang’s testimony was not reliable and Seon could have received money from someone else. Seon was the former president of a bottled water company that was once owned by Roh.

The prosecutors said that Kang had diverted W5 billion from the company and cooked the firm’s books from 1999 to 2002. Kang also allegedly evaded W1.35 billion in taxes during the same period. Of the W5 billion, the prosecutors have been trying to trace where Kang allegedly used the W1.3 billion, which they say he withdrew last year.

The prosecutors said Kang had stated that he lent Seon W950 million in November and December last year, and that Seon had paid back the money to Kang in February and at the end of November this year. Kang’s story is most likely false, the prosecutors said. Yet the prosecution has discovered hundreds of millions of won in Seon’s bank account, and they has been investigating whether Kang gave false testimony in order to cover up where Seon had gotten the money. The prosecutors summoned Seon again on Tuesday and questioned him on the source of the money. The prosecutors confronted Seon with Kang’s testimony.

The prosecutors said that Kang did not violate the political fund law, because Kang had received W2 billion, which he had lent the Millennium Democratic Party on November 26 last year, charging interest.

Regarding the investigation into the slush funds of the Hyundai Group, the prosecutors said they has been looking into the case further, because they had acquired evidence that the former MDP adviser Kwon Ro-gap had received money from other companies in addition to the than W20 billion and US$30 million from Hyundai. (Choi Jae-hyuk, jhchoi@chosun.com )