The joint prosecution-police investigation team probing suspected collusion between religious groups and politics on the 10th summoned and questioned figures from Shincheonji and the Unification Church one after another as reference witnesses.
Starting around 10 a.m. that day, the team questioned A, the chief director of the Zion Christian Mission Center of Shincheonji, and also summoned Song Gwang-seok, former chairman of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), in connection with allegations that the Unification Church lobbied political circles.
The team is expected to check with A whether legal fees that Shincheonji raised during the COVID-19 outbreak flowed into lobbying funds for political circles.
Earlier, during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, when General Assembly leader Lee Man-hee came under investigation on charges including obstruction of quarantine efforts, Shincheonji raised the General Assembly's legal fees via A's personal account, who was then the head of the theology department. At the time, Shincheonji notified congregants that church finances could not be used for criminal litigation legal expenses and that donations would therefore be received to a personal account.
The notice at the time said that, for tax reasons and others, a single transfer should not exceed 490,000 won. In the course of questioning former members, the team secured statements that the fundraising for legal fees was led by former Secretary-General Go Dong-an, then the No. 2 figure in Shincheonji, and that the money may have been used not for attorney expense but as lobbying funds in political circles to quash the investigation into Lee, and it is tracing the flow of funds.
That day, the team was also questioning the former chairman Song as a reference witness in connection with the Unification Church's alleged lobbying of political circles. Earlier, Yoon Young-ho, former head of the Unification Church World Headquarters, claimed that from 2018 to 2020 he delivered valuables worth tens of millions of won to Rep. Chun Jae-soo of the Democratic Party of Korea, former Democratic Party lawmaker Lim Jong-seong, and former United Future Party (UFP) lawmaker Kim Kyu-hwan, among others.
Song, the former chairman, is on trial on charges of donating 13 million won in corporate funds to the support committees of 11 lawmakers.