By Lee Tae-hoon

The National Assembly passed a motion Thursday allowing the arrest of an opposition lawmaker, who has been accused of misappropriating millions of dollars from a school foundation.

The motion was approved 131-95, with four abstentions and four votes voided in a plenary session.

With the approval, Rep. Kang Sung-jong of the main opposition (current) Democratic Party (DP) became the first lawmaker in 15 years to be taken into custody for questioning by law enforcement authorities.

The last parliamentary endorsement of an arrest of a lawmaker was made in 1995 against Rep. Park Eun-tae of the (then) DP on charges of taking some 100 million won ($84,700) in bribes.

Without parliamentary approval, incumbent lawmakers are free from arrest while the National Assembly is in session.

The Ministry of Justice requested the Assembly’s consent last month for the detention of Kang in an investigation into his alleged embezzlement of about 8.6 billion won from Shinheung College and its sister school.

In a speech preceding the vote, the lawmaker claimed innocence, saying he had not misappropriated a single cent of school funds, nor had he done anything that went against his conscience.

“I have never received any money or done anything shameful,” he said.

Many of his fellow lawmakers in the DP were strongly against the arrest, but they were outnumbered by the GNP, which controls 172 seats in the 299 legislature.

DP lawmakers claimed that it was unnecessary to detain Kang because he has faithfully cooperated in the investigation and there was no fear of him fleeing or destroying evidence.

The court will determine whether to physically detain the two-term lawmaker after questioning him early next week.

Meanwhile, the GNP expelled Rep. Kang Yong-seok of the DP for making derogatory, sexually explicit comments about TV anchorwomen at a dinner with college students.

The governing party decided unanimously, without voting, to strip him of his party membership following the approval of 135 party legislators at a closed-door meeting, well over the two-thirds of the 172 GNP legislators required to make the ruling,

Kang will be barred from having GNP membership for the next five years.

The GNP had deferred holding such a meeting twice to persuade Kang to voluntarily leave the party, but he refused to quit as he feared such a decision could adversely affect any future court trials.

The parliamentary ethics committee is currently reviewing whether to strip the first-term lawmaker of his seat over his misconduct.

leeth@koreatimes.co.kr

In 2006, GNP lawmaker Choi Yeon-hee lost his seat for sexually harassing a female journalist.