|
The Seoul District Public Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Division banned on Sunday about 10 people, including two or three legislators and officials from Daewoo Engineering and Construction, from leaving the country. The officials are accused of providing millions in electoral slush funds without receipts.
The prosecution is also tracking down one sitting lawmaker who allegedly received millions of won in bribes in return for favors to Daewoo. An official at the prosecutors¡¯ office said that the assemblyman¡¯s whereabouts are unknown, and that the prosecutors are trying to locate him.
The prosecution obtained evidence of extensive lobbying efforts by Daewoo Engineering and Construction in the process of purchasing a site and constructing Daewoo Trump World, an high-rise apartment building in Yeouido, Seoul. The case is now under intensive investigation. Influential figures in the former ruling party were said to have been involved in the case, and the posecutors are broadening the scope of the investigation.
Basing their inference on secret accounting books seized in the headquarters of the Daewoo Engineering and Construction Co. on Dec. 7, the prosecutors estimated the amount of slush funds have been W30 billion. An official at the prosecutors¡¯ office said that the amount of money that flew into the political realm, including presidential election funds and other general political funds, was about 10 percent of the total sum of slush funds that Daewoo had formed.
The prosecutors at the Seoul District Public Prosecutors¡¯ Office said that they notified the Central Investigation Department at the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office (SPPO) that Daewoo handed about W1 billion to the Grand National Party (GNP) and about W700 to 800 million to the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) for the presidential election. The Seoul District Public Prosecutors¡¯ Office is considering transferring the case to the SPPO to unify and centralize the illegal presidential election fund investigation.
The prosecutors said that they have already confirmed that two former legislators, one each from the ruling and the opposition parties, had acted as a channel in delivering illicit presidential election funds.
(Lee Jin-seok , island@chosun.com )
|
