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The Catholic Priests Association for Justice said Wednesday that Lee Jong-chan, currently senior presidential secretary for civil affairs and Kim Sung-ho, the newly named National Intelligence Service chief, were part of an alleged network, the so-called ¡°Samsung scholarship¡± maintained by Samsung Group to bribe key officials. When he was a state prosecutor, Lee is said to have even paid a visit to Samsung vice president Lee Hak-soo to collect money to pay for a vacation. Kim Yong-chul, the former Samsung legal affairs chief who has blown the whistle on the alleged slush fund, is said to have personally delivered bribes to NIS chief designate Kim.
Cheong Wa Dae said there was no evidence that the officials who have been named took bribes. Lee, Kim and Samsung all denied the allegations. And the CPAJ has not presented any concrete evidence either.
But we cannot simply ignore the claims made by the CPAJ and former Samsung lawyer Kim because there is no evidence. In his last revelation, Kim said Samsung delivered cash payments encased in containers looking like books or compact discs to officials through their close friends. After that revelation, the former chief presidential secretary for legal affairs supported Kim¡¯s claims by unveiling a photo of a W5 million bundle of cash he said he had received from Samsung in 2004. If it¡¯s true that officials at central government agencies in charge of audit and inspection had been taking regular bribes from Samsung, we can no longer consider Korea as worthy of respect, let alone being worried about the state of public discipline.
On the other hand, there are some things about the phased revelations of the CPAJ that make it hard to believe that they are just the result of the priests¡¯ desire for justice. Last year, when the state prosecution was conducting an internal audit, the CPAJ unveiled its first list of officials who allegedly received bribes from Samsung. They included the prosecutor general designate, chief of the Central Investigation Department at the Supreme Public Prosecutors¡¯ Office and the head of the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption. That revelation drove operations to a halt for state prosecutors and prompted the appointment of an independent counsel. And now, the CPAJ has unveiled its second list of officials, saying people with collusive ties to Samsung should not be appointed to head key government agencies, including those with audit and inspection roles. If the CPAJ was truly concerned about the country, it should have unveiled the list when the government was in the process of weighing its appointments.
There are supposedly around 40 people on the list of bribed officials that Kim and the CPAJ say they have. It is difficult to view the incremental revelations of the names on the list by the CPAJ as the right way to achieve justice. As if they are playing a game, the revelations of the CPAJ are timed to coincide with major political developments and end up driving the country into a frenzy of suspicion. If they have a list, then they should unveil it completely and at one time so that the public can emerge from this filthy mess.
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