It has been about a month since the Park Geun-hye scandal initially shook the nation. While she has yet to deliver a televised speech since making a second public apology on Nov. 4, fresh allegations are further amplifying public anger.
Apart from Park’s nongovernmental confidante Choi Soon-sil, who was indicted on charges of meddling in state affairs on Sunday, some media outlets are raising the possibility of secretive relations between Choi and Kim Ki-chun, formerly presidential chief of staff.
Kim served in the post from August 2013 to February 2015. In late 2014, Kim allegedly tried to whitewash the previous influence-peddling allegation involving Jeong Yun-hoe, the ex-husband of Choi Soon-sil, local cable channel JTBC reported, revealing the cellphone records of a former Cheong Wa Dae official.
JTBC alleged that Kim pressured then-senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, Kim Young-han, to suspend an investigations into the allegations concerning the “Jeong Yun-hoe documents.” The secretary died of acute liver cancer after his departure from office.
Since then, news about Jeong was sparse for more than a year, and Kim Ki-chun was recently questioned by reporters as to whether he was acquainted with Choi. Kim replied that he knew nothing about her.
However, a former government official, who was also probed over the Park scandal, reporteldy told interrogators that he had been introduced to Choi by Kim.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea is demanding the prosecution issue a summons against Kim as soon as possible, saying he has been under suspicion of having turned a blind eye to civilian Choi’s interference in a variety of state affairs and irregular accumulation of wealth.
Kim has also come under spotlight for his previous remarks in the National Assembly that he did not know the whereabouts of President Park on April 16, 2014, when the Sewol ferry disaster occurred. “The presidential chief of staff is not always informed of where the president is,” he told lawmakers after the accident that caused the death of 304 out of 476 passengers.
The mysterious whereabouts of Park for seven hours on the day of the sinking has emerged as a key point in the Park-Choi scandal amid continuous reluctance from Cheong Wa Dae to publicize details.
The prosecution has the obligation to launch a probe into Kim over his allegedly shady connections with Choi.
While the prosecution said it was investigating another ex-senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, Woo Byung-woo (the successor to Kim Young-han), he has yet to be placed under custody despite his allegation of irregular properties and overlooking Choi’s meddling.
There was a recent news report that, in 2014, Woo (at the time a junior official in the civil affairs division) -- along with Kim Ki-chun -- was in conflict with his senior colleague Kim Young-han over the direction of the investigation into the Jeong Yun-hoe documents.
The prosecution, which was facing tough public criticism for its belated scrutiny of the Park scandal, should not further dig itself into a hole. Furious citizens are watching to see whether or not the investigative agency will indict Woo with detention, and summon Kim as an expanded probe target.
The agency has designated President Park as a criminal suspect, while indicting Choi and two other presidential aides. Public attention is being paid to Kim and Woo, both of whom worked for Park.
Both were prosecutors. Kim was a three-term lawmaker with the Grand National Party, a precursor to the ruling Saenuri Party, while Woo was named to the Blue House post a month after the Sewol accident and quit late last month.
Kim was one of the few figures who initiated the passage of the bill to impeach then-President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 as then-chief of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly. Woo interrogated Roh at the prosecutors’ office in 2009 over allegations that his brother had engaged in bribery.
