Lee Sang-ho, a reporter from local television station MBC, is likely to face criminal charges over the disclosure of wiretapped conversations by the nation’s spy agency.
The prosecution summoned Lee Thursday to question him about the details of his report.
He was summoned as a witness in August after his company revealed the eavesdropping story to the public.
A prosecutor said that Lee was summoned as a suspect, indicating that the prosecution would take criminal charges against him on the grounds of violating the Communications Protection Act.
Lee allegedly obtained a tape and three transcripts of the wiretapped conversations between Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo and former Korean Ambassador to Washington Hong Seok-hyun, from a Korean-American businessman William Park last December.
The recordings disclosed that Samsung offered illegal campaign funds to presidential candidates before the 2002 presidential elections.
Investigators questioned the reporter to confirm whether he had pushed ahead with reporting the tapped conversations despite his knowledge that they had been illegally obtained.
Prosecutors also plan to send written summons to former Grand National Party lawmakers Kim Young-iel and Lee Bu-young in order to ask them to appear before the prosecution around Tuesday.
The prosecution summoned them twice to question them about the disclosure of documents dealing with the agency’s wiretapping operation in 2002. However, they did not comply with the summons.
Kim and Lee revealed documents that they claimed were transcripts of wiretapped conversations between politicians ahead of the presidential elections that year.
The prosecution will also summon Rep. Roh Hoe-chan of the Democratic Labor Party next week. Roh disclosed the names of former and incumbent prosecutors who he claimed were on the tapped conversation and were suspected of taking bribes from Samsung.
Investigators will also question former ambassador Hong Friday again over his alleged role of delivering slush funds from Samsung to politicians ahead of 1997 presidential poll.
Hong, who was summoned last month, reportedly denied all the allegations about the scandal.
