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| Former dictator Chun Doo-hwan's grandson Woo-won listens to his mother's testimony about the secret safe filled with cash over the phone in this episode of "Curious Story Y" aired on SBS last Friday. Captured from Internet |
By Lee Hae-rin
Ex-President Chun Doo-hwan's former daughter-in-law joined her son in revealing the late dictator's criminal and fraudulent activities, testifying that Chun and his wife kept a giant secret safe filled with cash as well as an art piece worth more than $1 million at their residence.
During a phone call with her son, Chun Woo-won, in an episode of "Curious Story Y" aired on SBS, Friday, Choi described the secret safe of the late former dictator.
According to Choi, former First Lady Lee Sun-ja had a long corridor of closets on both sides of the wall, one of which hid a door to a secret safe.
"Like a huge safe at a bank, it had a metal handle," Choi recalled, explaining the secret safe was about the size of her bedroom and was filled with cash.
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| Chun Woo-won maps out his grandfather's house on a tablet to describe the location of the secret safe in an episode of "Curious Story Y" aired on SBS, Friday. Captured from Internet |
However, the safe can no longer be found as the family removed all traces of it before the residence was searched as part of the investigation into Chun, Choi explained.
According to Choi, Chun Doo-hwan had more than five assistants, each of whom received apartments in Seoul's southern Mok-dong area from him.
"The house had Kim Whan-ki's signature blue work about the size of two doors that's worth billions of won (millions of dollars) hanging behind the table," she added.
Meanwhile, Choi expressed concerns over her son's safety as he appears to make more and more enemies. She warned him, "You'd better not reveal the identity of the assistants, if possible … their acquaintances and relatives will also turn against you."
Choi is the only member of Woo-won's family who supported him over his revelations and journey to Korea, the younger Chun said in an episode of KBS current affairs program "The Live" aired last Tuesday. All other family members broke off contact with him, he said.
Chun Doo-hwan, Woo-won's grandfather, was a former Republic of Korea Army general who seized power through a military coup in 1979 and then served as president from September 1980 to February 1988. He passed away in 2021 without ever admitting or expressing guilt over his brutal suppression of the Gwangju pro-democracy movement in 1980.
Woo-won has been disclosing a series of revelations about his family's criminal activities since March 13 and arrived in Korea from his residence in New York on March 28 to apologize to the victims and families of those who were killed or injured by the military during the Gwangju pro-democracy movement.
He became the first in his family to kneel down and apologize to the people who suffered due to the strongman's direction to use deadly force against the public at the May 18 Memorial Culture Center in Gwangju on March 31.
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