Prosecutors grill U.S. firm's rep, Roh aide
Prosecutors grill U.S. firm's rep, Roh aide
SEOUL (Reuter): South Korean state prosecutors probing business kickbacks to ex-president Roh Tae-woo questioned the Seoul head of U.S. firm Lockheed Martin yesterday over a huge warplane purchase.
A prosecution official said Kim Yong-ho, vice president for the Seoul office of Lockheed Martin, was being questioned late yesterday about allegations that Roh accepted kickbacks from General Dynamics during his term in office from 1988-93.
The official, speaking by telephone, said a Seoul consultant for General Dynamics was also being quizzed over the decision to buy 120 F-16s from General Dynamics in 1991, reversing an earlier plan to buy F-18s from McDonnell Douglas of the U.S.
Separately, the prosecution official said Kim Chong-whi, Roh's secretary for security and foreign affairs when the decision was made, was being grilled as "a suspect" in connection with the aircraft contract.
General Dynamics was mostly acquired by Lockheed Corp, which merged with Martin Marietta earlier this year to form Lockheed Martin. Kim Yong-ho, who headed General Dynamics in Seoul at the time, has denied involvement in unethical or illegal arms deals.
Prosecutors have said Kim Chong-whi, who was brought straight from the airport after arriving from the United States, was a key figure in the F-16 deal.
Kim Chong-whi left for the United States two months after Roh stepped down in February 1993. His departure coincided with the start of an official investigation into a massive $18,2 billion military build-up codenamed "Yulgok", of which the jet fighter purchase was a key component.
Roh was indicted last Tuesday on charges of accepting US$369 million from 35 business conglomerates during his tenure. He has been in detention since his arrest on Nov. 16 and faces trial on Dec. 18.
Prosecutors have already quizzed several former top military officers who served under Roh, including two ex-defense ministers, Lee Jong-koo and Lee Sang-hoon, and former airforce chief Han Chu-sok, in connection with the warplane purchase.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for arrested former president Chun Doo Hwan admitted yesterday the ex-general accepted money from business groups during his iron-fisted rule from 1980-88 but he said this was not for Chun's personal enrichment.
"Former president Chun received money from corporates...but he did not personally take them to build up his fortune," the domestic Yonhap news agency quoted lawyer Lee Yang-woo as saying.
Prosecutors have said they would formally indict Chun around Dec. 22 on separate charges of bribery during his term in office and military rebellion stemming from a 1979 coup that led to a massacre of civilians at Kwangju the following May.
Local media reports said Chun is suspected of having raised hundreds of millions of dollars while in office.
But they said none of the tycoons would face criminal punishment for bribing Chun as the statute of limitations period had already expired.
Chun was on the eighth day of a hunger strike yesterday.