Former President Roh’s Son Summoned Again

By Kim Rahn

Staff Reporter

Former President Roh Moo-hyun's son, Geon-ho, and Yeon Cheol-ho, the husband of his cousin, were summoned Tuesday again over their alleged involvement in a questionable money deal between Taekwang CEO Park Yeon-cha and the former presidential family.

Geon-ho, 36, was questioned over whether the sum of $1 million delivered to Roh's family from Park was spent on his tuition and living expenses while he studied in the United States.

``We have secured Geon-ho's Internet banking records in the U.S. for the year in question,'' senior prosecutor Hong Man-pyo said. ``But we cannot disclose the number of transactions.''

Hong added that the prosecution were looking into all financial transactions made by the former President and his family. However, he said they have yet to check the junior Roh's telephone records.

Geon-ho turned himself into the prosecution's office in the morning for questioning, which ran late into the night.

He is also allegedly linked to another $5 million deal involving Yeon. Park sent the money to Yeon in February 2008 after the latter and Geon-ho visited his factory in Vietnam in late 2007. Yeon claimed it was an investment into his venture firm in the tax haven of the Virgin Islands.

Yeon set up another firm there with $3 million out of the $5 million and Geon-ho was briefly the largest shareholder, the prosecution said.

Investigators interrogated the junior Roh about his involvement in the deal, specifically how he got the money to become the largest shareholder, and whether he took part in the overall management of the money. Park has testified that he gave the $5 million to the former President.

Prosecutors said Geon-ho is not being investigated as a suspect yet but if the money is confirmed to be bribe paid to his father, he may be charged as an accomplice. If they find evidence that he was implicated in the transfer of the $5 million, he can be charged with a violation of the Foreign Exchange Law together with Yeon, as they did not report the deal to the authorities in advance.

The former President claimed on his Web site that his wife Kwon Yang-sook borrowed $1 million from the CEO to repay a debt and that she confided it to him recently. Kwon refused to disclose how and where the money was spent during questioning Saturday.

But Park testified to the prosecution that Roh himself asked for the money to buy a house for his son in the U.S. Park hurriedly converted about one billion won into $1 million and delivered it to Roh's former secretary Chung Sang-moon at Cheong Wa Dae June 29, 2007, a day before the former presidential couple departed for Seattle for a stopover en route to Guatemala to take part in PyeongChang's bid to host the Winter Olympics.

Prosecutors suspect the couple delivered the money to the son in Seattle. They questioned Kwon Chan-ho, then Korean consul general in the U.S. city, Monday, over the former President's undisclosed schedule at that time.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr