By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
A college student, who spread rumors online that a female college student was killed by riot police during an anti-U.S. beef rally, allegedly kept donations he collected from some 1,000 netizens after claiming he would advertise her death in newspapers.
Police said the 23-year-old student at Chosun University in Gwangju, spent part of the donation at massage parlors and night clubs. The student, identified by his family name Kim raised about 20 million won ($20,000) from July 8 - 25 and paid 14 million won for an advertisement looking for any witnesses who saw a person who was receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation during a confrontation with police according to the progressive Hankyoreh newspaper.
The police found that Kim transferred about three million won from a bank account he set up to collect donations to another account used for paying his credit card bills. After transferring the money to his personal account, Kim bought some clothes, spent money at pubs and nightclubs as well as massage parlors.
Kim also allegedly withdrew 1.8 million won in cash from the donation fund. However, Kim denied the allegation. ``It is true I drank alcohol with my credit card but I didn’t use the donation for personal purposes. I posted that I had 4 million won left after the newspaper advertisement on the Internet cafe and I planned to pay back the money I used,’’ Kim said.
But police say it is counted as embezzlement when a person withdraws money from a public account for personal purpose. Police detained Kim last Friday for violating the Electronic Communication Law by spreading the rumor online and have been questioning him since then.
Police sought an arrest warrant last Sunday but a court refused to issue one.