Song's bank accounts being searched

By Kim Rahn

Song Kwang-yong

Prosecutors said Tuesday they are tracing bank accounts of former senior presidential secretary for education Song Kwang-yong as part of an investigation into universities that operated unauthorized overseas study programs.

Song was president of Seoul National University of Education when the university ran such a program. Song is one of the former and incumbent heads of 17 national and private universities being investigated, the prosecution said.

Although the probe is currently focusing on violations regarding the program, prosecutors are not ruling out the possibility that the probe may widen into Song’s alleged personal corruption.

The probe came three days after Song suddenly resigned as presidential secretary without providing specific reasons, only three months after being appointed in June.

The universities allegedly ran the programs, in which students studied at the schools for one year and at overseas schools for three years and got the latter’s diplomas, without government permission.

Under Song’s leadership between 2007 and 2011, the education university operated such a program. Police questioned Song on June 9, three days before he was nominated for the Cheong Wa Dae post. About a month after he was appointed on June 23, police booked him without physical detention on suspicion of a violation of the Higher Education Act.

Police also booked heads of 11 overseas study agencies which played the role of brokers linking the domestic and overseas schools for the programs.

Before referring the case to the prosecution, police said they did not investigate possible under-the-table deals between the agencies and the domestic colleges, adding they did not find any suspicions of corruption regarding Song.

However, allegations against Song have arisen, as it was unlikely that the presidential office accepted his resignation only because he was head of the college at that time of the violation. Song’s school scrapped the program in 2011, the last year of his term, while other colleges have maintained theirs.

Prosecutors are looking into whether the agencies bribed officials of the schools. In the case of Song’s school, 179 students paid 3.3 billion won for the programs, and the school took 1 billion won and the agencies, 2.3 billion won.

“We may summon him or trace money flows of his bank accounts if necessary,” a prosecutor said.

Earlier in 2012, Song was inspected and warned by the education ministry for taking 14 million won in allowances from the university’s continuing education center in an improper procedure while leading the school. He was ordered to return the money.