The special counsel team investigating suspicions surrounding President Lee Myung-bak’s now-scrapped retirement home plan questioned Lee’s former security chief on Friday.

Kim In-jong, who was until October last year the head of the Presidential Security Service, is a key figure involved in the scandal, which centers around the joint purchase of land by his office and Lee’s son to build the president’s retirement home and security facilities.

He is suspected of inflicting state losses by making the payment that the president’s son, Si-hyung, should have made in the land purchase. 

“I will fully cooperate with the investigation,” Kim told reporters, stepping into the special counsel’s office in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul.

The investigative team had earlier questioned Lee Sang-eun, the president’s eldest brother, who loaned Si-hyung 600 million won ($540,000) in cash, half of the amount that the president’s son paid for the land, and Si-hyung.

Suspicions surrounding the land purchase include an allegation that the first family may have broken a law on the use of real names in property transactions for inheritance purposes and a more serious one that the president’s son may have paid less than what his share was actually worth with the presidential security service paying the difference.

The total cost of the plot of land in Naegok-dong was 5.4 billion and Si-hyung shouldered just 1.12 billion won.

The special counsel team is expected to call in for questioning Kim Bae-joon next, another former Blue House official who was allegedly deeply involved in the land deal.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)