Seoul - Jay Y. Lee, who heads South
Korea's massive Samsung Group, was given a $5 box meal for lunch
and did not sleep in over 22 hours of questioning in a
corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye.
Lee, who has a net worth of $6.2 billion and is the
third-generation leader of the country's biggest conglomerate,
or "chaebol", left the special prosecutors' office in southern
Seoul on Friday morning in what appeared to be the same suit and
tie he'd worn when he entered a day earlier.
The tall, bespectacled 48-year old did not look visibly
affected by the session, in which he was questioned by two
prosecutors, including one nicknamed the "Chaebol Sniper".
Lee did not speak to reporters before getting into a waiting
car.
"Two prosecutors interrogated him and they came in and out
of the room to report to their chief," a prosecution official
told Reuters.
"None of them - prosecutors or Jay Lee - slept before the
questioning was over," the official said.
The official, who declined to be named due to the
sensitivity of the matter, said Lee's lawyer was present during
the questioning.
Prosecutors have been investigating whether Samsung provided
30 billion won ($25.46 million) to a business and foundations
backed by the president's friend Choi Soon-sil in exchange for
the national pension fund's support for a 2015 merger of two
Samsung affiliates.
Lee was named as a suspect on Wednesday and summoned for
questioning on Thursday morning. He became the de facto head of
the Samsung Group after his father Lee Kun-Hee was incapacitated
by a heart attack in 2014.
Read also: Samsung chief questioned by prosecutors
Samsung has acknowledged making payments to two foundations
at the centre of the scandal, as well as to a consulting firm
controlled by Choi, but has repeatedly denied accusations of
lobbying to push through the merger of Samsung C&T Corp and
Cheil Industries Inc.
Park was impeached by parliament in December, a decision
that must be upheld or overturned by the Constitutional Court.
Park, who has been stripped of her powers in the meantime, has
denied wrongdoing.
Choi, who is in detention as she undergoes trial, has also
denied wrongdoing.
'Chaebol sniper'
After his sleepless night, Jay Lee went directly to Samsung
headquarters in Seoul's upscale Seocho district, a few
kilometres (miles) from the special prosecutors' office, local
media said.
A Samsung spokeswoman did not have immediate comment.
One of the two prosecutors grilling Lee was Han Dong-hoon,
the prosecutors' office said.
Han has been nicknamed the "Chaebol Sniper" by local media
for his record in previous high-profile corporate
investigations, including a 2003 case involving the SK Group and
another in 2006 focused on Hyundai Motor.
After a box meal for lunch, Lee ate jajangmyeon, a Chinese
black-bean-paste noodle popular as a cheap meal, for dinner,
according to the special prosecutor's team.
Local media reports said Lee was questioned in a room known
as the "digital recording interrogation room" in the office that
was set up specially to investigate the presidential corruption
scandal.
The special prosecution official could not confirm to
Reuters in which room Lee was questioned.
The digital recording interrogation room, shown previously
to reporters, has one table and about six chairs and is equipped
with a closed-circuit television camera as well as a desktop
computer and printer. An air purifier stands in the corner.
The room has a one-way mirror through which proceedings can
be seen unobserved from a neighbouring room.
Lee will not be summoned for questioning again, a spokesman
for the special prosecutors' office said. But he said
prosecutors will decide soon whether to arrest him.
Lee had denied some of the suspicions against him but had
admitted to others, the spokesman said. He declined to
elaborate.