Environmental Activist Choi Yul Indicted
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
The prosecution indicted Choi Yul, president of the Korea Green Foundation, without physical detention, Wednesday, on charges of misappropriating public funds.
The indictment came after a local court twice refused to issue an arrest warrant for him last November and last month.
Choi, a former head of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), is one of the nation’s iconic environmental activists.
Prosecutors said that Choi kept in his personal bank account 300 million won, which a conglomerate had donated to the KFEM in September 2000, and spent 240 million won of it on his brother’s business and for rent.
The KFEM also collected 345 million won in donations from companies between September 2003 and March 2005, ostensibly for a scholarship fund, but Choi allegedly used 260 million won for other purposes such as rent for the federation office, according to the prosecution.
He also allegedly received 130 million won from a constructor promoting an eco-friendly industrial complex in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, in exchange for a request for business favors from local officials.
Prosecutors also indicted four other KFEM staff members without detention on charges of diverting the federation’s funds for other purposes than those originally designated and obtaining funds from state organizations via misleading information.