Korean ambassador to Myanmar named at Choi Soon-sil's recommendation

Korean Ambassador to Myanmar Yoo Jae-kyung answers reporters on his way to the special prosecution team’s office in southern Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

Korean Ambassador to Myanmar Yoo Jae-kyung, 58, has admitted that President Park Geun-hye’s confidant Choi Soon-sil helped him obtain the diplomatic post last May, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The independent counsel team looking into the corruption allegations involving Choi said that it secured a statement from the former executive of Samsung Electro-Mechanics that Choi recommended him to the President.

Choi met with Yoo in March, two months before he was appointed as ambassador, the team added.

While Yoo initially neither confirmed nor denied that he knew, or met with Choi, he confessed to the prosecutors after hours of questioning in the team’s building in Daechi, southern Seoul.

“I met with Choi many times and I was made ambassador following her recommendation,” Yoo was quoted as admitting to the team.

Earlier, Yoo said that he believed President Park when she told him that her administration preferred someone with ample sales experience to be a diplomat, as she expected a substantial increase in trade with Myanmar.

However, the appointment of Yoo, who had no diplomatic experience, triggered mounting speculation not only from diplomatic circles but from the business sector that a powerful figure was behind the surprise decision.

His admission came a day after the team filed an additional charge against Choi for seeking personal gain in state business worth 76 billion won ($65 million) in Myanmar.

The team believes that Choi received shares from a company in exchange for helping it participate in an Official Development Assistance (ODA) project last year. The amount of the shares and the identity of the company have yet to be disclosed.

According to the team, the state project called "Myanmar K-Town" was spearheaded jointly by the foreign and trade ministries but was later scrapped due to a lack of viability and on-site inspection reports that expected little profit.

The team is looking into whether Choi sought to influence any decision to benefit herself or the Mir Foundation, one of the two organizations she set up, alongside the K-Sports Foundation.

In addition to Yoo, Jun Dae-joo, 69, a former ambassador to Vietnam and Park Noh-wan, a former consul general to Ho Chi Minh City, came under similar suspicions in 2013.

Allegations then were that Choi helped the two get their posts in exchange for granting business favors to her nephew surnamed Jang. The son of her older sister Choi Soon-deuk, was running a kindergarten in Ho Chi Minh City. Jun was a former chairman of a small business association in Vietnam.

The team plans to ask a district court to issue a second warrant that will enable it to detain Choi for up to 48 hours of questioning. The first such warrant was issued and executed last week.

Meanwhile, at the eighth trial hearing of Choi and former presidential secretary An Chong-bum at the Seoul Central District Court, a former mid-level executive of the Mir Foundation, Kim Seong-hyun, said directions from Choi and her former associate Cha Eun-taek were almost always the same.

Kim’s testimony dealt a severe blow to Choi who has been maintaining that she was never involved in the establishment and management of the Mir Foundation. Choi has been claiming that Cha, with the help of his friends, exercised sole control over the foundation’s business plans.