Another family member of President Lee Myung-bak underwent questioning Thursday as part of a probe into his retirement residence plan.

Lee Sang-eun, the president’s eldest brother, arrived at 9:50 a.m. at the lobby of the independent counsel team’s office in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul, where his nephew and the president’s son, Si-hyung, had been grilled as a criminal suspect for 14 hours last week.

“I will tell everything inside,” the 79-year-old chairman of auto parts maker DAS said upon his arrival, surrounded by reporters.

The elder Lee is a key person involved in the scandal, having loaned 600 million won ($549,000) to Si-hyung for the purchase in May 2011 of a plot of land in southern Seoul where the first family had planned to build a home to move into after the president’s term ends in February next year.

Lee Si-hyung, who in 2008 reported his assets to be only 35 million won, was the purchaser, borrowing the entire amount for the land purchase of 1.12 billion won. He borrowed the 600 million won in cash from his uncle, Sang-eun, and the rest from a bank, providing his mother’s real estate as collateral.

Opposition parties claim the first family has violated a law on the use of real names in property transactions for inheritance purposes. Some suspect an even shadier deal that Lee’s son paid less than what the land was actually worth and the presidential security office paid that much more for an adjacent plot to build security facilities.

The special counsel team was expected to focus their questions on establishing key details of Lee Sang-eun’s loan to Lee’s son, including where the 600 million won came from and why it was all in cash.

According to local reports, Si-hyung told the investigators that he had asked his uncle for the loan on May 20 and wrote him a promissory note that day. Four days later, he took bundles of cash from his uncle’s home to the Blue House by car.

While Lee Sang-eun was being questioned, a team of investigators searched a Seoul office of DAS to secure evidence. They had previously raided both the home and office of the chairman in mid-October. Si-hyung also works at the firm.

The team is reportedly searching for the computer file of the original copy to confirm whether the promissory note was actually exchanged, as claimed by the president’s son.

Lee Sang-eun had been interviewed by state prosecutors before in relation to suspicions surrounding his wildly-successful brother, but this is the first time that he underwent a face-to-face questioning session with investigators.

On two previous occasions, he had just submitted written answers. 


By Lee Sun-young
(milaya@heraldcorp.com)