[Editorial] A court’s judgment is all that awaits former president Lee Myung-bak

Former president Lee Myung-bak reads a message to the Korean people prior to entering the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Mar. 14. Lee was summoned to speak with prosecutors regarding allegations of bribery and misuse of public funds that occurred during his time in office. (by Shin So-young, staff reporter)

On the morning of Mar. 14, former president Lee Myung-bak met with prosecutors following his summons as a result of suspected bribery and misuse of public funds that took place during his time in office. Just one year after Park Geun-hye was questioned and detained, South Koreans have to see another former president paraded before the flashbulbs. This is a shame. Despite the public desire for Lee to make an apology, show some remorse or at least offer an explanation, his lawyers report that he continues to maintain that he is a victim of “political retribution” and “a targeted investigation.”

Lee’s close associates, including Kim Hyo-jae and Jung Dong-gi, have predicted that Lee will “completely deny” all the charges before the prosecutors and take the fight to court. Considering the criminal facts that have already come to light, this attitude shown by Lee and his associates all the way until his summons is extremely disappointing. Suspects in a criminal case obviously have the right to defend themselves with the help of an attorney. But we can’t help asking whether a former president like Lee really ought to refuse to provide the public with the slightest apology or explanation for facts that have already been demonstrated through physical evidence and testimony.

In brief, there are four charges that the prosecutors are investigating, and all of them are connected to money. On top of allegations that Lee appropriated money from the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) special activity fund and accepted huge bribes for appointments, nominations and construction bids, he is also charged with embezzlement and tax evasion as the effective owner of DAS and with making large Korean companies pay his legal fees.

In addition to this, he is implicated in allegations about mobilizing the army and intelligence services in online commenting campaigns and employing the NIS in political attacks, including suppression of the opposition parties and cultural figures, artists and journalists. While the court declined to issue a detention warrant for former Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, Lee may still have been briefed about these political campaigns. Ordering the military and intelligence agencies to meddle in politics and elections is a severe crime against the foundations of the state that tramples on the constitution and weakens democracy, and as such this demands a probe that is separate from the corruption investigation. In a certain sense, it is no exaggeration to say that the Blue House under Lee Myung-bak sowed the seeds of Park Geun-hye’s manipulation of the government for private ends.

Lee’s associates argue that the prosecutors only have verbal testimony to support the charges they have laid out and apparently believe that, if they can only overturn the narrative that DAS belongs to Lee, he will be able to dodge a significant number of the charges. They claim that the four billion won used to renovate Lee’s house in Seoul’s Nonhyeon neighborhood, part of the proceeds from the sale of land in Seoul’s Dogok neighborhood, was just “money borrowed from his older brother Lee Sang-eun” and that the DAS stock belongs to Lee Sang-eun and thus is unrelated to embezzlement or tax evasion. They also completely deny the charges related to the NIS’s special activity fund and the large sums of money delivered along with requests for appointments, nominations and construction bids on the grounds that Lee Myung-bak did not receive the money directly and so is not responsible.

But the route taken by the NIS’s special activity funds has already been revealed through testimony by former NIS directors and by Kim Baek-jun and Kim Hui-jung, while the question of the real owner of DAS has basically been answered through testimony by connected individuals and through documents seized from the Yeongpo Building. When most South Koreans believe that DAS belongs to Lee, it is doubtful how persuasive his rebuttal will be. In the end, the truth will come out through the evidence and legal procedures, just as Lee wants. What he ought to know, however, is that nothing he says will earn him forgiveness when it comes out that he has fooled the entire nation for nearly twenty years. Passing the cost of DAS’s legal fees onto the chaebols is problematic in and of itself, but Lee was allegedly reaching out to the chaebols at the same time that he was ordering an investigation into bribery by former president Roh Moo-hyun. If true, this was audacious behavior without the slightest trace of human decency or shame.

More than 70% of South Koreans think it is appropriate for Lee Myung-bak to be taken into custody. Not even the prosecutors could buck public opinion on this point. The only thing awaiting this former president who deceived the people and accepted a multitude of bribes, on top of exploiting the government and raiding the state treasury, is the judgment of the court.

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