Elder sibling acts as political regent

By Yi Whan-woo

The prosecution’s decision to summon the elder brother of President Lee Myung-bak next Tuesday is part of an investigation to fully uncover his alleged involvement in a series of corruption scandals under the current government, sources said Friday.

The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office ordered Lee Sang-deuk, 76, to present himself for questioning for the first time since his brother won the presidency in 2008.

The sources anticipate the elder Lee, a former ruling party lawmaker, will find it difficult to clear corruption allegations made against him this time.

The prosecution has been criticized for being soft on him, despite his alleged involvement in a number of corruption scandals.

Investigators only questioned him twice via written inquiries, despite suspicions that he was a key figure in several cases from 2008 to the present.

He has been the main force behind the government’s expansionary policies to secure energy and other natural resources from energy-rich nations in South America and Northern Africa such as Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, and Libya.

He carried out the President’s plan to double the proportion of oil and gas produced in assets owned by Korea to 18 percent by 2012.

However, he failed to spearhead national projects, leaving a number of problems which government agencies have been busy trying to resolve.

Some of the projects even reeked of irregularities, including a diamond mining contract in Cameroon. Park Young-june, former knowledge and economy vice minister was suspected of being involved in a stock manipulation scandal over the contract; and also the illicit granting of business rights for gas development in Myanmar to a new, dubious firm. It was rumored that Lee was behind both cases. Park was indicted this year in a separate case but the Lee dodged a probe.

The latest allegations include bribe-taking from two suspended savings banks. He allegedly took 400 million won ($346,200) from the CEO of the Prime Savings Bank, which was suspended in March 2011 for accounting fraud and illegal lending practices.

The sources also said that Lee allegedly accepted hundreds of millions of won from Lim Suk, the chairman of Solomon Saving Bank, one of four troubled banks, whose operations were suspended this May for their failure to meet the capital adequacy ratios recommended by the Bank for International Settlements.