The head of South Korea’s largest business group Samsung said yesterday that he was “ashamed” and would accept the results of an ongoing probe into corruption allegations.
Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee apparently softened his stance after undergoing 11 hours of intense questioning which lasted into early yesterday at a special prosecutor’s office.
“I feel deeply ashamed before the people for causing this disturbance over the Samsung issue,” he told journalists as he was leaving special prosecutor Cho Joon-woong’s office. “I will humbly accept the results of the special probe and do my best not to let this kind of thing happen again. I should be blamed and held responsible for all these things.”
When he appeared for questioning on Friday, Lee had flatly rejected allegations that the group had raised millions of dollars of bribery slush funds and that he had illegally helped transfer control of the group to his son, Lee Jae-yong.
He also angrily rejected a suggestion that his group was now being seen by the public as a crime ring, blaming the media that “passed on such things.”
But when he was leaving the office, he appeared to concede that the group might have committed some wrongs.
“Some points, maybe. But not 100 percent,” Lee said when asked by journalists whether he agreed that allegations about massive slush funds, the illicit transfer of control of the group to his son and bribery were true.
The questioning of the 66-year-old business tycoon capped the probe which began in January.
Parliament voted to set up the independent probe into claims by the group’s former chief lawyer that it created a slush fund totalling 200 billion won (US$197 million) to bribe government officials and politicians.
Investigators have asked South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to extend their mandate until April 23.
“It would be correct to say we are in the wrap-up stage,” said Yun Jung-sok, a spokesman for the special prosecutor.
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