The special prosecutor’s team looking into the President Park Geun-hye scandal is “positively considering” asking for an extension of its 90-day investigation period, citing the need to look at the case more thoroughly, it said Monday.  

Lee Kyu-chul, the spokesperson for independent counsel Park Yong-soo, said at the briefing that more work has to be done in order to wrap up its investigation on charges against President Park and her close friend Choi Soon-sil.

In response to a question on whether the probe team is considering any possibility to ask for an extension, Lee said they are likely to do so “based on the current situation.”

The probe team has until Feb. 28 to wrap up its investigation. A 30-day extension is possible, but it requires the approval of acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn, who was appointed by the impeached president. Park, stripped of her powers, is currently undergoing an impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court. 

On Monday morning, the probe team summoned a former presidential doctor as part of its investigation into the corruption scandal involving doctors who treated Park and Choi.

Suh Chang-suk, the president of Seoul National University Hospital, who acted as a presidential doctor for two years until February 2016, was grilled by investigators on suspicion that he gave special favors to Kim Young-jae, a general practitioner who runs a luxury anti-aging clinic in southern Seoul. Choi and her family are known to have frequented the clinic. 

Kim was hired by SNUH for outpatient care in July 2016, a position usually given to specialists with training and expertise in a specific area, rather than general practitioners.  

In the afternoon the investigation team questioned Kim Jin-soo, the former presidential secretary for health and welfare, on the suspicion that the Blue House may have pulled strings behind the provision of government subsidies and support to a medical company owned by Kim Young-jae’s wife.

Kim’s wife, Park Chae-yoon, the head of medical device manufacturer Y. Jacobs Medical, has been detained on suspicion of bribing Park’s former senior secretary An Chong-bum, who is on trial in connection with the scandal.

The bribe was allegedly in return for 1.5 billion won ($1.3 million) in government subsidies for research and development at Y. Jacobs Medical. Representatives of the company later accompanied President Park in several presidential overseas trips and investor meetings.

The probe team has already raided SNUH as well as several beauty clinics, including Kim’s. The search was prompted by widespread suspicion that President Park may have received a beauty treatment on April 16, 2014, the day the Sewol ferry sank claiming more than 300 lives.

President Park has consistently faced claims in local news outlets that she was secretly receiving anti-aging treatment from Kim Young-jae on the day. 

Kim admitted during an Assembly hearing in late 2016 that he treated Park on many occasions at the presidential Blue House, but he insisted he was not there on that day.
 
By Bak Se-hwan (sh@heraldcorp.com)