By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
National Police Agency Commissioner General Lee Taek-soon was cleared of charges of having sought to cover up Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn's revenge attack on bar workers who had injured his son in a brawl in early March.
The prosecution Friday indicted Choi Ki-moon, the former police commissioner general and current advisor to Hanwha Group, without physical detention on charges of having sought to peddle his influence to cover up the case. Choi is said to have called Jang Hee-gon, the former head of Namdaemun Police Station in Seoul, to solicit his help in covering up the chairman's violent attack.
The Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors' Office announced that it has now concluded its investigation into high-ranking police officials and Hanwha executives on attempts to cover-up the attack.
Prosecutors said that Lee and Yu Si-wang, an advisor for Hanwha Securities and high school classmate of Lee, played golf together right after the attack took place and tried to manipulate the guest book of the golf course to avoid police tracking them down.
However, both will not be punished as there is no evidence that Yu solicited favors from Lee and removing a golfer's name from a guest book is not illegal, they said.
The prosecution also found that the business group spent 1.3 billion won to avoid a police investigation. Some of the money was used as compensation for the victims and 580 million was used to allegedly bribe policemen, but the prosecution failed to find any evidence.
Meanwhile, Kim's lawyers are said to be seeking ways to file for his prison sentence to bbe commuted to probation after his hospitalization over depression and insomnia, Thursday.
The tycoon's legal team previously filed for probation right after he was sentenced to 18 months in jail last month, but this was rejected by the court.