The team of special prosecutors looking into President Lee Myung-bak’s controversial retirement home project questioned on Friday two real estate agents who handled the purchase of the land.
The scandal centers around a deal last year by Lee‘s only son Si-hyung and the presidential security service to jointly purchase a plot of land in an affluent Seoul neighborhood for a retirement home for President Lee and auxiliary facilities for security personnel.
The younger Lee, however, is under suspicion of not sharing the cost evenly, with the security service paying too high a price for the site for security facilities in what the opposition has claimed was a scheme to allow the son to profit from buying the site at a below-market price.
The two realtors, who brokered the purchase of the land, appeared at the office of special prosecutor Lee Kwang-bum in southern Seoul around 9:50 a.m. to be questioned about the allegedly suspicious deal.
Details of their questioning were not made immediately public.
The counsel is looking into suspicions that President Lee and his son violated real estate laws by using the wrong name in a real estate transaction and also misappropriated taxpayers’ money.
One of Lee‘s older brothers, Sang-eun, was requested to return to the country earlier to be questioned over suspicions that he loaned some 600 million won ($542,000) to his nephew for the purchase, according to the special prosecution team.
The 79-year-old brother, the chief of automotive seat maker DAS, was not among the 10 people banned from leaving the country by the Justice Ministry on Tuesday for the ongoing probe.
The chairman left for China a day earlier on what DAS officials said was a business trip. He is scheduled to return next Wednesday, they said.
The presidential office has flatly rejected allegations the suspicions the deal was a scheme to help the son profit. Lee later scrapped the project and decided to move into his existing private house in Nonhyun-dong in southern Seoul after leaving office.
The National Assembly approved the special investigation last month after prosecutors wrapped up an inquiry into the scandal in June without filing charges against anyone involved, saying all suspicions in the case had been resolved. (Yonhap News)
