It has been made known that President Park Geun-hye held another closed-door meeting with a business leader earlier this year after holding talks with seven conglomerate chiefs last year.
Amid suspicions that the president could have exerted pressure on conglomerate CEOs to donate money to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, an official at the prosecution on Monday revealed the latest finding.
The source said that Park held an unofficial one-on-one meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won in February this year, sometime after a trade and investment promotion meeting was held at the presidential office.
The remarks came after the prosecution summoned Chey on Sunday as a witness over the Choi Soon-sil scandal, along with heads of local conglomerates who the president held talks with in July of last year, including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo.
A suspicion has also been raised recently that Park met Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin in February or March.
The prosecution is said to have focused its interrogation on Chey on how the meeting between him and the president was arranged, and whether the president requested his financial assistance for the Mir and K-Sports foundations.
SK contributed eleven-point-one billion won, or nine-point-53 million dollars, to the two controversial foundations, becoming the third largest donor of the two entities after Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor Group, which paid 20-point-four billion won and 12-point-eight billion won, respectively.
Source: KBS World Radio