Assembly Speaker’s aide faces arrest over vote-buying scandal

By Lee Hyo-sik

A close aide to National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae has been banned from leaving the country for his involvement in an alleged cash-for-votes scheme ahead of the ruling party’s leadership race in 2008, the prosecution said Sunday.

According to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Cho Jung-man, 51, who is Park’s chief policy secretary, played a key role in the alleged vote-buying in which the speaker’s aides offered cash to lawmakers of the Grand National Party (GNP) before the party’s national convention on July 3, 2008. Park was elected as the GNP chairman at the time and served as the party leader for two years.

Cho has been a confident to the former GNP leader for the past 20 years and served as a chief financial manager at Park’s camp during the 2008 GNP leadership contest.

``We suspect that Cho was deeply involved in the dubious scheme in which Park’s aides offered cash to GNP lawmakers in an attempt to buy votes. We think he knows exactly who Park’s campaigners tried to bribe party members and where the money came from,’’ a senior prosecution official said. ``This week, investigators will summon and question Cho about the source of the cash delivered to GNP lawmaker. To prevent him from fleeing the country, a travel ban has already been imposed on him.’’

According to the prosecution, Cho has not come to his office at National Assembly since last Wednesday when investigators raided the residence of Ko Myeong-jin, the speaker’s former secretary suspected of having delivered money to Rep. Koh Seung-duk and other lawmakers to seek their support for Park during the 2008 chairmanship race.

Following testimony from Rep. Koh’s aide that he returned the 3 million won ($2,600) to Ko, the prosecution questioned the former secretary about the vote-buying allegation. Ko admitted receiving the money from the aide but denied delivering it to the lawmaker.

The prosecution plans to seek an arrest warrant for Ko early this week on charges of violating the Political Party Law. Last Friday, prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for An Byung-yong, chief of the party’s main chapter in Seoul, after questioning him for two days. He allegedly gave 20 million won to five of its members and ordered them to deliver it to the secretary generals of 30 other party chapters based in the capital.

The members testified that An showed them a list of party chiefs they were to give the money to. They said they returned the money to An after concluding the money offering was illegal. The prosecution said they have obtained the list.

But An, an aide to Rep. Lee Jae-oh who is President Lee’s key aide, has denied the allegation, claiming a faction against Rep. Lee is framing up the story.

After securing a list of figures the Park camp allegedly bribed, prosecutors has been tracing the flow of funds between the camp’s official accounts and those of Park’s aides to find out how they prepared money delivered to GNP members. They plan to question the speaker Park as soon as he returns from an overseas trip on Jan. 18.

Meanwhile, the prosecution has set up a separate investigation team to probe the alleged vote-buying allegation involving the main opposition Democratic Unity Party during the latest party convention, which ended Sunday. Members of a conservative civic group filed a complaint with the prosecution against the opposition party, claiming candidates vying to become the party leader bribed voters.