It will be interesting to see what becomes of the latest scandal to plague the Park administration:
Seen here is the memo found on April 9, 2015, inside the jacket pocket of Sung Wan-jong, former head of Keangnam Enterprises Ltd., who killed himself while facing an investigation related to the overseas resources diplomacy project. The memo listed eight high-ranking government officials and Park’s aides and amounts of money. (Yonhap)
The disclosure of a so-called “bribery list” left behind by an embattled businessman at the center of a snowballing corruption scandal before he committed suicide continued to put the government of President Park Geun-hye on edge Saturday.
Sung Wan-jong, head of Kyeangnam Enterprise Ltd., killed himself by hanging on Thursday, hours before he was to appear before a Seoul court set to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for him on various corruption charges.
A brief memo found in his trouser pocket dropped a bombshell in South Korean politics. Listed in the memo are the names of eight heavyweight politicians, all close confidants of Park, and won figures next to them, indicating that the money was delivered.
The eight politicians include Park’s two former chiefs of staff — Huh Tae-yeol and Kim Ki-choon — her current chief of staff, Lee Byung-kee, and Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo as well as Hong Moon-jong, a ruling party lawmaker who had served as the President’s campaign manager in 2012.
According to the local daily Kyunghyang, Sung said in an interview with it on Thursday right before committing suicide that he gave some 200 million won (US$182,000) in cash in to Hong and that he believes the money was used for Park’s election campaign.
“I don’t think he would have spent the money for himself. That was for the election,” he told Kyunghyang. The daily belatedly made public part of the phone interview. [Yonhap]
