Special team to trace Chun's hidden assets
Chun Doo-hwan former President
By Kim Se-jeong
Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said it will launch a special team tasked with collecting 167 billion won in unpaid fines from former President Chun Doo-hwan.
Chun, who was in office between 1980 and 1988, was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 220 billion won by the Supreme Court in 1997 for amassing assets through taking bribes.
Of the initial fine, Chun has not paid 167 billion won. The prosecution is pressured on time because the legal expiration date for the collection of the fine is Oct. 10, 2013.
“We will trace all the assets of Chun and collect overdue fines,” said an officer from the prosecution office.
He said the team is comprised of seven prosecutors and seven investigators who have expertise in tracing hidden assets.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office also said it is committed to fully supporting collecting the owed fines from the former president. Chun took power after a military coup d’etat in 1979, and was responsible for, among other atrocities, sending the military into the streets of Gwangju which resulted in a blood-letting that ended a democratic uprising in that city in May, 1980.
The prosecution’s establishment of a special team to collect fines from Chun came after Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook ordered top prosecutors to take steps to collect the money from Chun on Tuesday.
“The legal expiration date for the collection of finds from former (President Chun) is imminent. Therefore, we must take extraordinary steps to trace hidden assets and thoroughly collect fines,” Chae said at the meeting of top prosecutors.
Chun has refused to pay the fines, since infamously claiming that his total wealth amounts to “only 290,000 won.”