Opposition Hits 'Illegal' Bank Probe

Representative Eom Ho-sung of the opposition Grand National Party charged Thursday that officials of the Financial Supervisory Service now dispatched to the prosecution are illegally tracing financial accounts.

He was speaking at the plenary session of the National Assembly.

"We have evidence," Mr. Eom said. "Their involvement is an abuse of authority."

He presented as evidence a financial statement that a director at the financial watchdog received from the Korea Exchange Bank during an investigation into the funneling of government intelligence agency funds to a political party in 1996.

Kim Jung-kil, the minister of justice, responded, "Financial Supervisory Service employees only act as consultants to the prosecutors."

The power to trace financial accounts lies at the heart of a recent partisan spat as ruling and opposition parties fight over whether to create a new government agency, the Financial Intelligence Unit, to trace suspect accounts.

Proponents want the unit to be set up in conjunction with a bill to stop money laundering. The bill is one of three major reform bills backed by the ruling Millennium Democratic Party.

The ruling party and its coalition partners want the unit to be able to trace accounts, but the opposition claims that the power could be too easily abused for political purposes.

by Lee Yang-soo