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The team of special counsel Cho Joon-woong on Wednesday questioned Hong Ra-hee, the wife of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and the director of the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, late into the night. But the team is to clear Hong (62) of buying artworks with money from Samsung slush funds for lack of evidence.
Investigators apparently concluded that "Happy Tears" by Roy Lichtenstein, a W9 billion painting (US$1=W975) that is at the center of the allegations, does not belong to Hong Ra-hee but to Hong Song-won of the Seomi Gallery. An investigator said, "We could have brought criminal charges against her if we could have proved that she bought the painting with Samsung's money. But we found no trace of Samsung funds in the purchase, and we found that 'Happy Tears' belongs to Hong Song-won."
The team questioned Hong Ra-hee why thousands of artworks are stored at the Everland amusement park which functions as Samsung¡¯s quasi-holding company; whether dividend payments from several borrowed-name accounts of Samsung Life Insurance, which were delivered to Kukje Gallery, were actually Samsung slush funds; and whether W700 million-worth of Samsung bonds, which Hong Ra-hee sold to buy paintings from her relatives, was part of the slush funds.
Hong reportedly testified the paintings stored in the Everland warehouse were bought legally and belong to Samsung Culture Foundation and she never bought paintings by international artists with Samsung funds."
The special counsel now plans to question Lee Kun-hee himself either this weekend or early next week.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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