Allegations and retractions fly on Lee son

In a new twist in the long-running saga of alleged draft dodging by politicians' sons, a Millennium Democratic legislator said Wednesday that a prosecutor asked him in April to politicize the issue. The lawmaker, however, apparently intended his comments to reporters to prove that an official inquiry into the military service exemption of Lee Hoi-chang's son was underway before a critic of the Grand National Party recycled them publicly; he hastily retracted them when the GNP and the press accused the prosecution and the MDP of playing politics.

The MDP representative, Lee Hae-chan, said that Park Young-kwan of the Seoul District Prosecutors Office approached him with three allegations about Lee Hoi-chang's son and asked Mr. Lee to raise the issues in the Assembly.

Mr. Park heads the task force investigating the highly politicized matter.

Mr. Lee gave reporters a detail account of three red flags that Mr. Park, the prosecutor, had raised about the matter, including the physical appearance of military records concerning the presidential candidate's son, an alleged secret meeting to plan a cover-up and the silence of a senior draft official on the matter, supposedly after a visit from persons representing the GNP nominee.

Continuing his chat with reporters, Mr. Lee said he did not bring the issue up during a government questioning period because the party's primary elections were underway and he knew one of the allegations was incorrect.

The comments triggered a barrage of criticism, however, about prosecutors playing politics, another sensitive issue because of the involvement by some prosecutors in political maneuvering surrounding recent corruption cases. Mr. Lee, though his spokesman, hastily retracted his earlier comments, saying he had heard that Mr. Park was heading the investigation of Mr. Lee's son and nothing more. He denied that he had met with Mr. Park or spoken to him by phone.

Mr. Park also quickly denied Mr. Lee's earlier claims and added that he had never met the legislator; he did not know why Mr. Lee would say such things, he added.

by Seo Seung-wook, Jo Kang-su