Samsung chief back at prosecutors

SEOUL — Samsung Group’s Jay Y. Lee was taken back to a special prosecutor’s office for a second day following another night in police custody as part of a corruption probe that has widened to include South Korea’s largest industrial conglomerate.

Lee, vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics, was shown on a YTN television broadcast being led into the office in Seoul around 9:50am local time. Lee was inside the office for about eight hours the day before. On Friday, the Seoul Central District Court arrested Lee on a warrant including allegations of bribery, perjury, embezzlement, hiding assets abroad and concealing illegal profits.

Lee has been the acting head of Samsung while his father, Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun Hee, has been hospitalised since 2014. The probe could eventually interfere with the son’s ability to take full control of the group after his father formally steps down.

As head of a conglomerate that is the world’s largest maker of smartphones, Lee is the highestprofile business figure yet accused in an influence-peddling scandal that has already seen President Park Geun-hye impeached. Prosecutors have cited evidence that Samsung paid bribes to a confidante of the president to ensure government support for a 2015 merger of affiliates that tightened Lee’s grip on the chaebol, as Korea’s dominant business groups are called.