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[garykasparov]

Lee foes hit credibility of BBK probe




Political rivals of presidential campaign frontrunner Lee Myung-bak continued to question the fairness of the investigation of his former business partner charged in a high-profile fraud case.
Legal experts from the liberal United New Democratic Party and the campaign office of independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang claimed that the prime suspect Kim Kyung-joon was allegedly "coerced" into making statements favorable to Lee in exchange for lighter punishment.

They met with Kim for two hours at a Seoul detention facility yesterday, one day after the prosecutors' office cleared Lee of corruption allegations and indicted Kim on charges of stock price rigging, embezzlement and forgery.

"Mr. Kim regrets that he testified favorably about candidate Lee," Lim Nae-hyun, chairman of the UNDP's illegal campaign watchdog, said in a statement. "He was scared by the prosecutors' threat that he would get a 12- or 16-year jail sentence and then he cooperated with prosecutors with the hope of serving a shorter term," added Lim.

Kim Jeong-sul, a legal aide to Lee Hoi-chang, met with the accused Kim Wednesday. The legal aide said Kim Kyung-joon quoted a prosecutor saying, "If (we) work toward establishing Lee's innocence, he will be elected president, and this would be good for you. If you rebuff our overture, the press will make you out to be a major con artist. You could face a prison term of up to 16 years. If you cooperate, you will possibly get the minimum or a suspended sentence."

The lawyer visited Kim at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday after the authorities announced the results of the probe.

In the meantime, the sister of Kim Kyung-joon abruptly canceled plans to hold a news conference yesterday morning in Los Angeles.

Erica Kim had planned to present additional material to prove presidential candidate Lee's involvement with her brother in the scandal, and to protest the prosecutors' probe which Kim's side says is biased. She did not give any reasons for the cancellation.

The defense lawyer for Kim said in a news conference that Kim is denying all the charges against him, and insisting that he was forced to admit to crimes he did not commit.

"Mr. Kim is claiming that he was threatened and cajoled by the prosecutors, but I can't express my own opinions on that," Oh Jae-won said.

He added that the so-called side agreement was written in March 2001, not in February 2000, as Kim initially claimed. Oh added that Kim insists that the GNP candidate himself put the seal on the contentious agreement. Kim presented the allegedly clandestine contract written in Korean last month, claiming that Lee held a 100 percent stake of BBK until Feb. 21, 2000.

Oh also said that there were three printers - one inkjet printer and two laser printers - at the BBK office when the contract was made. This challenges the prosecutors' claim, which is that the agreement was a forgery.

Refuting Kim's stock-manipulation charge, Oh said, "In order to maintain Kim's stake in Optional Ventures, he did (what might be mistaken for stock-rigging). Regarding the misappropriation of some 31.9 billion won, he used that money mainly to repay BBK investors, and some of it to buy shares in Optional Ventures. Thus, it was not embezzlement."

This claim regarding "the under-the-table plea bargain" was first made by Erica Kim. On Tuesday, she revealed a handwritten memo by her brother which contains this assertion.

Prosecutors vehemently repudiated the alleged deal as "nonsense." And they launched an investigation yesterday into how and where the memo was written and sent out. The authorities are planning to have Erica Kim extradited as an accomplice in the financial scam.

"We recorded almost all of the important parts of the interrogation. We conducted our investigation strictly based on objective evidence, so such a deal could never happen," said Choi Jae-Gyeong, a senior prosecutor who led the probe.


By Song Sang-ho


([email protected])




2007.12.07

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2007/12/07/200712070059.asp

[mindmetoo]

In a world where even the head of tax services takes bribes, even trifling little bribes ($60,000) for a man of his station, could anyone doubt the mayor of seoul didn't have his hand up the ass of several crooked deals?

[Ya-ta Boy]

At dinner with my friend the other night, he said no one really believes LMB is innocent and no one cares. I'm sure he's exaggerating about 'no one', but I'm sure he's right in the general thrust of his statement.

[mindmetoo]

[Ya-ta Boy]