“Canal Report” Leaked by Korea Waters Resources Exec

“Canal Report” Leaked by Korea Waters Resources Exec. June. 25, 2007 05:28. bibulus@donga.com hyejin@donga.com.

A police investigation has revealed that an executive at the Korea Waters Resources Corporation (K-Water) disclosed its 37-page report that reviewed former Seoul mayor and the Grand National Party’s presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak’s campaign pledge titled “The Grand Canal on the Korean Peninsula.” The case is now under investigation by the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency. On June 24, the agency took a deposition from Kim Sang-woo (55, Executive Director), a technology head from the K-Water Corporation, that he passed the report to Kim Hyun-joong (40) who is Kim’s Seoul National University Advanced Management Program fellow and the CEO of a matchmaking service company. Kim leads the research and planning team that wrote the report at the K-Water Corporation.

The police agency was told that Kim handed the report over to a weekly paper reporter who is his acquaintance at a hotel coffee shop in Seoul on June 1. Kim Sang-woo stated, “Kim said that he is very interested in political matters and the Gyeongbu canal, and I just passed it over to him when he wanted to see it. That’s all.” Kim Hyun-joong said, “I delivered a copy to the weekly paper reporter because he showed his interest in the canal.”

However, Kim Sang-woo changed the name of the writer of the report to Task Force team when he transferred the report.

The police booked both Kims on the charge of confidential data leakage and aiding and abetting the infringement of the K-Water Corporation Law on June 23. However, there are still many questions about the process by which they obtained and disclosed the report. For this reason, the agency plans to investigate further on June 25 by summoning the suspects.

According to this newspaper’s data collection efforts, Kim Hyun-joongwas also one of the 12 co-leaders of the New Right Youth Union.

Meanwhile, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency is looking into whether the Seoul Development Institute infringed on the campaign law in respect to the study of the Gyeongbu Canal at a time when Lee Myung-bak was mayor. The policy agency noted that it would investigate an official at the Seoul Development Institute and a professor at Sejong University who was engaged in the report study.

Prior to this, the Seoul Metropolitan Policy Agency searched the Seoul Economics Research Institute within the Seoul Development Institute, which was in charge of proving the canal report on the 23rd. On the same day, the agency searched three professors’ offices at Sejong University, and seized the 13 related documents and books.