(LEAD) Ex-vice minister denies bribery allegations

(ATTN: ADDS prosecution summoning of businessman in para 9-11)
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) -- A former vice culture minister, during an overnight questioning, denied allegations that he received a huge amount of money from a local businessman in return for influence peddling, prosecution sources said Monday.
Shin Jae-min, the ex-vice minister and close presidential confidant, returned home early Monday after undergoing 17 hours of intensive questioning over allegations that he took more than 1 billion won (US$851,788) in cash and gift certificates from SLS Group Chairman Lee Kuk-chul over the past decade.
During the questioning, Shin admitted to occasionally taking gift certificates from Lee but denied the businessman's widely-published claim that he was lavishly bribed constantly over the long period of time, the sources said.
The former official also reiterated his firm stance that he has never peddled influence for Lee in return for the financial gain, they noted.
Prosecutors launched an investigation into the latest corruption scandal after the chairman disclosed to the media last month that he constantly gave cash and gift certificates to Shin from when he was a journalist in the local press in 2002 until recently. Shin was also a secretary of state affairs for then President-elect Lee Myung-bak in 2007.
Prosecutors have grilled Shin over allegations that the businessman asked him to use his influence to help avoid a state-led debt rescheduling for the conglomerate in return for the payments.



As Shin left the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office around 2:40 a.m. following the 17-hour questioning, he told reporters, "I am very exhausted. (We will talk about it) next time."
Before appearing before prosecutors on Sunday, Shin said in a Facebook post that "It is very unjust as well as very shameful for me ... If what I did is unlawful, I would accept punishment," without elaborating.
Amid differing accounts from the two, prosecutors re-summoned Lee Monday afternoon for a third session of interrogation.
In the latest session that followed two others each in late September and early October, prosecutors plan to secure evidence for Lee's bribery claims raised against the official.
Shin will then likely be called back in for questioning or be made to confront the businessman regarding the allegations and refutations, prosecutors said.
The major bribery scandal involving one of President Lee's close aides came less than two weeks after Kim Du-woo, a former senior presidential aide for public relations, was arrested by prosecutors for a separate bribery case involving a suspended savings bank.
As a flurry of corruption scandals have flared up in the last years of Lee's presidency, Lee called for stern actions against bribery cases involving some of his close aides and family members last month.