Students Clash In Seoul, Demand Resignation Of President

AFP, 10 May 1997

SEOUL, May 10 (AFP)—Some 500 radical students on Saturday clashed with riot police at a university here Saturday, demanding the resignation of President Kim Young-Sam whose son has been implicated in alleged influence peddling.

The clash at Sung Kyun Kwan University occurred when the students forced their way onto the street through the main gate which was locked up with chains by police to foil an anti-government rally on the campus.

The students traded firebombs and rocks for a barrage of police tear gas bombs.

They hung a large banner on the front of a campus building, which described Kim Young-Sam as the biggest robber in history, and put up other slogans demanding his arrest and resignation.

Late Friday, some 200 students were detained in and around the same university campus during a violent protest. The violence came after the opposition charged that Kim Young-Sam received some 100 million dollars from Hanbo business group before the 1992 presidential election.

Officials of the presidential Blue House flatly denied the charge, accusing the opposition of spreading groundless rumors to stir up ahead of the presidential election late this year.

Prosecutors are delaying summoning of the president’s son allegedly involved in influence peddling as investigators need more time to collect evidence, prosecution officials said Saturday.

The prosecution is conducting an intensive probe on Kim Hyun-Chul but it’s not easy investigating someone who is denying charges, a prosecution official was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. State KBS radio said Hyun-Chul would be summoned no earlier than late May.

The delay came after prosecutors uncovered more than 100 bank accounts which Hyun-Chul’s associates opened in other people’s names to hide millions of dollars of slush money suspected of belonging to the president’s son.

Prosecutors are investigating whether the money was political funds left over from the 1992 presidential election or kickbacks the son allegedly received through influence peddling, a prosecutor said.

Hyun-Chul, 38, who has no official position, has been dogged by persistent allegations of corruption. The opposition charged that the president’s son was at the center of a massive loans-for-kickbacks scandal engulfing the Hanbo business group, which collapsed under 5.8 billion dollars in bad debts.

Hyun-Chul was cleared of involvement in the Hanbo scandal in March by the prosecution but faces arrest on separate charges of influence peddling.