Ruling and opposition parties on Sunday agreed to hold a National Assembly hearing starting Tuesday to investigate the tragic death of Kim Sun-il. Lee Jong-gul of the Uri Party and Nam Kyung-pil of the Grand National Party (GNP) announced a statement declaring that the Assembly would form an ad-hoc committee to investigate the death of Kim Sun-il. The committee will first send a fact finding team consisting of two lawmakers from Uri party and GNP each to Iraq to start the investigation.
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A group of Uri members visit the Foreign Ministry to investigate officials concerned with the Kim Sun-il case. /Yonhap
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This ad-hoc committee will consist of 20 lawmakers; 10 lawmakers from the Uri party, 8 lawmakers from the GNP, and 1 lawmaker each from Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), and will add one more member if the United Liberal Democrats wish to take part. The investment period will also be prolonged from its current one-month span, if necessary. The offices under investigation will include Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, National Intelligence Service, Ministry of National Defense, National Security Council (NSC), and Korean Embassy in Iraq. Kim Chun-ho of Cana General Trading Co., authorities from Associated Press (AP), and the security company that tried to negotiate the releasing of Kim will be called to testify in the hearing.
Aside from the Assembly hearing, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) will also carry on a state audit. Jeon Yun-churl, chairman of the BAI, has Shortened his schedules of the International Organization Of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) summit and came back to Korea on Saturday to initiate the inspection. Jeon said, ¡°Since the national interest in the death of Kim is high, and the issue regards governmental trust among the people, the board will work hard to reveal the truth about this incident.¡± Regarding this comment, an official from the BAI has said, ¡°We will conduct a thorough inspection based on the report sent from the Iraqi Embassy... We will also investigate the truth about the AP¡¯s inquiry, with the help of related offices.¡±
In response to the allegation of ignoring the AP¡¯s inquiry, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin met with the reporters and said, ¡°We have received five statements from the information officers of the Middle Eastern department and handed them to the board, but many of them lack credibility.¡±
(Yoon Jeong-ho, jhyoon@chosun.com )
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