A long-time aide to President Lee Myung-bak offered to resign Friday after suspicions emerged he took bribes from a now-jailed savings bank chief at the center of a massive lobbying scandal.
Presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said secretary Kim Hee-jung, who handles the personal affairs of the president, denied the bribery allegations against him, but expressed his intention to step down to take “moral responsibility.”
A local daily newspaper reported earlier in the day that prosecutors are looking into suspicions that Kim received hundreds of millions of won in bribes from Solomon Savings Bank chairman Lim Suk.
Kim, who has been on vacation, had earlier been asked to return to the presidential office and offer a detailed explanation.
Instead of coming in, however, Kim called a discipline officer and made the resignation offer, the spokesman said.
Kim was quoted as saying during the phone call that he did not take any money, but he wants to take “moral responsibility” as “my name was mentioned” in the press over the massive bribery scandal that has been rocking South Korea for months.
The spokesman provided no further specifics.
Kim has worked for Lee since 1997 when Lee was a lawmaker and the bribery allegations, if confirmed, would deal yet another serious blow to the president, who saw his elder brother arrested earlier this week on bribery charges in the savings bank scandal.
