Prosecutors said Friday they will summon a former police chief for questioning next week in a libel investigation over his remarks indicating that late President Roh Moo-hyun had a slush fund in a borrowed name bank account.
Cho Hyun-oh, who resigned as commissioner of the National Police Agency last month amid public outrage for mishandling an emergency call in a kidnapping-and-murder case, has been under the investigation after making the remarks in 2010, when he served as head of a regional police agency.
Roh committed suicide in 2009, about a year after leaving office, amid a widening probe by prosecutors over allegations that his family members took illicit funds. The investigation was closed after his death.
In a meeting with police officials in March 2010, Cho reportedly commented on why Roh killed himself, saying police "found large amounts of money kept under a borrowed-name account a day before" his suicide. The family of Roh sued Cho for libel.
Cho will be summoned on Wednesday, a prosecution official said.
In a telephone interview published earlier in the day by the Dong-a Ilbo, a local daily, Cho said he will tell prosecutors "everything" about the borrowed-name account allegedly opened by Roh.
"It is an obvious fact that former president Roh had a borrowed-name account," Cho was quoted as saying. (Yonhap)