Prosecutors tracing accounts of Seoul education chief

(ATTN: UPDATES with latest finding in 5th para)
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors are looking into possible sources of the money that the Seoul education chief paid to a rival candidate, allegedly to get him to withdraw from last year's election.
The Seoul prosecution has studied the bank accounts of Kwak No-hyun, the incumbent Seoul education superintendent, and those of his wife and close aides on suspicion that the education chief may have misappropriated public funds.
Kwak was backed into a corner last week as prosecutors launched their investigation on the allegations that he gave 200 million won (US$186,514) to Park Myoung-gee, a professor at Seoul National University of Education, in return for his withdrawal from the election for education chief.
In an ad hoc news conference on Sunday, Kwak admitted that he gave the money to the rival candidate from the same liberal bloc but insisted that it was a gesture of "goodwill" for Park, who was suffering heavy debts from his election campaign. He denied the money was a reward to Park for pulling out of the race.
Park told prosecutors that in addition to the 200 million won given to him earlier this year, the Seoul education chief promised to pay 500 million won more by year's end in exchange for the withdrawal, according to the prosecution.
Prosecutors believe that given Kwak's tight control and use of his assets, the money could possibly have come from public education funds or other budgets earmarked for polling costs for the liberal opposition bloc.
A close aide of Kwak, however, denied the charges, saying, "As far as I know, the superintendent has not touched public funds."
Prosecutors secured late Monday an arrest warrant from a Seoul court for the professor and plan to summon Kwak and other related people in the near future.
The superintendent will lose his job if fined over 1 million won for having paid to be the sole opposition candidate in violation of the election law. In that case, he will also be required to forfeit 3.5 billion won he received from the election watchdog as his election campaign budget last year.
The widening election scandal came as a setback to the Seoul education chief, who secured a victory against the conservative ruling bloc last week. The conservatives had strongly opposed a free school lunch plan for all students that Kwak supported.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon offered to resign after losing in the Seoul referendum he called in a bid to cancel the opposition-controlled Seoul city council's meal plan, which he denounced as a populist welfare program.