By Kim Rahn
Prosecutors have detained two former Navy officers for their alleged involvement in the supply of substandard parts to a Navy ship, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said Tuesday.
The two, surnamed Oh and Choi, were in charge of contracts for the supply of parts to the Tongyeong, a 3,500-ton salvage ship, when they worked at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Oh was a captain and Choi was a commander.
At the time of the contracts, their boss was Hwang Ki-cheol, who is now the Navy chief. Hwang was earlier questioned over his possible involvement, but was cleared of suspicion.
Oh and Choi are suspected of fabricating documents to get the Navy to acquire the substandard parts from a U.S. firm, whose name was withheld.
The investigation started after suspicions arose over why the Tongyeong was not used in the rescue operation for the ferry Sewol, which sank in April killing more than 300 people.
Prosecutors raided DAPA, Oh and Choi’s homes and the Korean unit of a U.S. part supplier on Monday and seized documents, account books and computer files.
“We are investigating how and why the two people fabricated the documents, whether they colluded in the fabrication with other officials and whether they received money from the supplier in return,” a prosecutor said.
“After finishing review of the seized documents, we’ll summon relevant figures at the DAPA, the Navy and the supplier for questioning over suspected bribes.”
The Tongyeong was launched in September 2012 with more than 160 billion won spent for development and construction. It was known as a “state-of-the-art rescue ship made with domestic technology.”
However, the Navy refused to take it over after finding through its own tests that the ship’s hull-mounted sonar, a key part for rescue missions, had problems.
So the ship was not used in the search and rescue operations for the Sewol.
As rows grew over the ship, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) conducted an inspection between May and July. It found that the sonar was a model developed in the 1970s, worth around 200 million won. But the administration purchased it at 4.1 billion won from the supplier, more than 20 times the market price, in 2009.
The BAI then asked the prosecution to investigate Oh, Choi and some other officials at the administration. The two people were in charge of supplier selection at that time.