Lee Myung-bak’s associates blast his arrest as “political retribution”

Former president Lee Myung-bak heads to a waiting car to be taken from his house in the Nonhyeon neighborhood of Seoul to the Seoul Eastern District Detention Center after his arrest on bribery and corruption charges on Mar. 23. (Photo Pool)

Conservative lawmakers criticize investigation as former president is taken into custody

Less than an hour passed from the issuance of the detention warrant for Lee Myung-bak until he boarded the prosecutors’ prisoner transport vehicle. Six years after leaving office in 2013, the former South Korean president was arrested and driven to the Eastern District Detention Center to face 12 charges that include accepting bribes and embezzlement.

At 12:01 am on Mar. 23, Lee appeared in front of his house in Seoul’s Nonhyeon neighborhood in the company of Shin Bong-su, senior prosecutor of the first high-tech crimes investigation department at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office; Son Gyeong-ho, senior prosecutor of the second department for special investigations; and other investigators working for the prosecutors. The group emerged from Lee’s house just five minutes after they arrived.

Lee, who was wearing a suit, a black overcoat and black glasses, briefly shook hands with Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Kwon Seong-dong and other supporters who were lined up around the car and then immediately got inside. Lee set out for Seoul’s Eastern District Detention Center without responding to reporters who asked whether he had anything to say to the public, what his feelings were and whether he thought this was political retribution. Until the car drove off, some thirty-odd protesters who had gathered near his house were chanting, “Lee Myung-bak has been detained!” and “Lock up his cronies, too!”

Former president Lee Myung-bak‘s letter that he posted on his Facebook page after his detention warrant was issued.

While Lee did not state his position when he stepped out of his house, he did express his feelings about his impending detention in three handwritten pages that he posted on his Facebook page after his detention warrant was issued.

“Rather than blaming anyone, I feel that this is all my fault, and I feel guilty. Over the past 10 months, I have faced suffering that has been hard to endure…. When I think of how the people who only worked without any holidays are suffering because of me, I can’t get any sleep,” Lee wrote, indicating that he feels sorry about his close associates.

“I hope that someday I will be able to show you who I really am and say what I have to say. Even so, I will be praying for the Republic of Korea,” Lee wrote to wrap up his message. He had reportedly written the message in the early hours of Mar. 21 in case he would be detained and then posted it when his detention warrant was issued.

Lee’s associates who visited his house on the expectation that the warrant would be issued strongly criticized the prosecutors’ investigation as “political retribution.” Former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and former Blue House Senior Secretary for Political Affairs Kim Hyo-jae arrived at 5 pm, while former Blue House Senior Secretary for Public Relations Lee Dong-gwan and Liberty Party Korea lawmakers Kwon Seong-dong and Jang Je-won got there around 8 pm.

At 10:30 pm, just before the warrant was issued, Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Kim Young-woo came out of Lee’s house to make some remarks: “Under the Moon Jae-in administration, the prosecutors so far have called in more than a hundred of Lee Myung-bak’s associates for questioning with the goal of sending Lee to prison. This is clearly political retribution and a political free-for-all. If this were a fair attempt to uproot corrupt practices, they would also be investigating corrupt practices the administrations of Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. Today will go down in the political history of the Republic of Korea as the day that the prosecutors created yet another corrupt practice.”

More than thirty of Lee’s supporters stayed at his house until the warrant was issued. After they watched him board the van, they went their separate ways.

By Hwang Keum-bi, staff reporter

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