South Korean opposition parties plan to file an impeachment motion against President Roh Moo-hyun after he was found to have violated election laws with comments aimed at influencing parliamentary polls, opposition officials said yesterday.

　　The opposition Millennium Democratic Party had said last week it would try to impeach the president if he did not apologize by Sunday for violating election laws during a news conference late last month.

　　Roh has yet to do so. Officials at the MDP and the fellow opposition Grand National Party said on condition of anonymity yesterday that the parties planned to submit an impeachment motion to parliament today.

　　Last week, the country's election watchdog ruled that Roh violated election rules with comments that could unfairly influence next month's parliamentary poll, although it found that Roh's infraction was minor.

　　Roh had responded to a journalist's question last month by calling for "overwhelming support" for the minor Uri Party, which backs the president.

　　Presidential spokesman Yoon Sock-joong said Roh's staff was preparing a defense should the motion pass, but dismissed the move as political posturing ahead of the April 15 parliamentary elections.

　　"We believe this is politically motivated, and we cannot give into such pressure," Yoon said.

　　Roh, who took office in February 2003, has no party affiliation, but has said he plans to join the liberal Uri Party, which has 47 seats in the 273-member National Assembly. The MDP has 62 and the GNP 146, giving the two parties 208 seats, or three-quarters the assembly's total.

　　Roh's office issued a statement calling for a revision that would allow him to express political views more freely.

　　Roh is grappling with an opposition-controlled Assembly critical of the president, and hopes the Uri Party can expand its ranks at the polls.

　　A simple majority of the Assembly is needed to introduce the impeachment bill, and a two-thirds majority is needed to pass it. If the motion is approved, the matter is passed to the country's Constitutional Court, where six of nine judges must rule against Roh to unseat the leader.

　　If Roh is dismissed from office, Prime Minister Koh Gun would serve as interim president. An impeachment motion against a South Korean president has never made it as far as the Constitutional Court.

　　In another development, state prosecutors said yesterday that the country's largest conglomerate, the Samsung Group, contributed millions of dollars in illegal campaign funds ahead of the 2002 presidential election.

　　In an interim report on an investigation into allegations that Roh and his GNP challenger Lee Hoi-chang accepted illegal funds during the race, prosecutor Moon Hyo-nam said Samsung Group funded both camps, giving 3 billion won (US$2.6 million) to Roh's campaign and 34 billion won to Lee's.

　　There was no immediate response from the Samsung Group. Several other major South Korean companies, including LG Group, SK Group and Hyundai Motor Co, have already been implicated in the illegal funds scandal.

　　Roh's supporters and the opposition have been rocked by the allegations. But prosecutors said yesterday that they will not directly question individual lawmakers until after the parliamentary poll.

　　Roh has pledged to step down if prosecutors find that his camp accepted more than a 10th of the illegal contributions given to Lee.

　　(The Associated Press)