[Yonhap Photo]
Kim Byong-joon, nominated as new prime minister Wednesday, was a liberal scholar who served as a senior presidential aide in the government of South Korea's liberal president Roh Moo-hyun who committed suicide in 2009.
Kim, a Kookmin University political science professor advocating the decentralization of power and balanced regional development, joined Roh's election camp in 2002 and became his policy adviser in June 2004.
After working briefly as education minister in 2006, Kim ended his political life after being caught up in a plagiarism scandal. He was accused of using unauthorized research papers from his students for his thesis but later returned to his school.
After ending his five-year term as president, Roh killed himself in May 2009 at the height of an investigation by prosecutors into alleged corruption involving his wife and other family members. Followers claimed Roh was the victim of a political revenge.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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