Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Choi Yoon-hee has been indicted over suspicions of bribery, state investigators said Sunday, in the latest in a series of corruption cases exposed in the country’s defense industry.
Choi is believed to have ordered his subordinates to write a favorable performance evaluation of an untested AW159 Wildcat, which the Navy adopted in 2013, an official with the country’s anti-corruption task force said.
Investigators believe Choi had a special relationship with the man who brokered the import of the Wildcat, who allegedly offered jobs at his restaurant to Choi’s former subordinates from the Naval Academy and free meals to Choi’s wife.
The man, identified only by his surname Ham, is suspected of paying Choi’s son 20 million won ($17,000) in 2014 under the guise of investing in his personal venture. Ham was supposed to pay him 200 million won in total, and the 20 million won was only the first installment, the investigator said.
Ham is also suspected of bribing the head of the Agency for Defense Development and a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis in a similar manner.
Choi is the second-highest ranked official to be charged by the task force after the former Defense Minister Lee Yang-ho.
The task force was launched in November 2014 after the Sewol ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people shed light on the pervasive nature of corruption in the country’s defense industry. (Yonhap)
