Prosecution to summon ex-aide of Park

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office is scheduled to summon Chung Yoon-hoi, a former adviser to President Park Geun-hye, this week, amid speculations that he was improperly exercising power in the administration.

Investigators said Sunday that they are looking for any telecommunication records between some presidential aides and the 60-year-old Chung.

The prosecution, which has been investigating a scandal involving Chung, recently secured the phone logs of Chung and former presidential aide Cho Eung-cheon, 52, who was in charge of discipline in the civil service, respectively.

Since the Segye Ilbo earlier alleged that Chung interfered in state personnel matters despite not being on the presidential staff, the prosecution has been investigating whether Chung had really had phone communications with some presidential secretaries.

Following the summons of Cho and Police Superintendent Park Gwan-cheon, 48, who was junior to Cho, last week, the prosecution plans to investigate Chung by summoning him this week, said prosecution detectives.

While Cho has continued to say that Chung had irregularly interfered in state administrative affairs, Chung has denied the allegations in interviews to some media outlets.

Superintendent Park, who is accused of leaking some presidential documents, said he was only instructed to type what was given to him by his seniors at Cheong Wa Dae.

The document drawn up by Cho’s office said that Chung was working with a number of incumbent presidential aides including Lee Jae-man, Jung Ho-sung and Ahn Bong-geun, to influence state affairs.

While Chung and some other presidential aides implicated in the case have dismissed the reports as groundless, Cho claims that a large portion of the information is credible. Chung and the others have filed libel suits against the Segye Ilbo.

It has since been claimed that Chung also used his influence to launch an audit into the Korea Equestrian Federation.

According to reports, associates of Chung had issues with the federation, and Cheong Wa Dae ordered the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to compile a report biased toward the claims of Chung’s associates.

But, when the report described faults on the part of Chung’s associates, Culture Ministry officials responsible are said to have been reassigned on the orders of the president.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)