Kumho Petro chief summoned again over slush fund scandal

Prosecutors again summoned the chairman of Kumho Petrochemical Co. for questioning on Saturday over allegations that he created big slush funds and made unfair profits by using internal information.

Park Chan-koo, a younger brother of Park Sam-koo, chairman of the Asiana Group which owns South Korea's second largest carrier Asiana Airlines, is suspected of having raised tens of billions of won in slush funds by falsifying records of transactions with contractors.

He is also alleged to have taken illegal profits amounting to more than 10 billion won ($9.3 million) by selling his stocks in Kumho Industrial, a construction and express bus business branch of the group, using internal information of the group in June 2008.

The 62-year-old chairman, however, has denied the slush fund allegations, prosecution officials said.

He was first questioned by prosecutors on Friday. "I'm sincerely cooperating with the probe," he told reporters before entering the prosecutor's office on Saturday.

Asked about his earlier claim that the slush-fund allegations that have been raised against him should actually be directed at the Kumho Asiana Group, Park said he had nothing to say about that.

The Park brothers were in conflict over control of the group in 2009, which led both of them to resign from their posts. But the two resumed their posts last year.

(Yonhap News)