The controversy over allegations that prosecution chief Chae Dong-wook had a son out of wedlock took a new twist as the child’s mother broke the silence and claimed that the boy is unrelated to him.

The mother, identified only by her surname Lim, sent a letter to liberal newspaper Hankyoreh and said her relationship with him was no more than a bar owner and customer.

Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook has denied a report by the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo that he met a woman in 1999 and fathered her son in 2002. Chae and his wife have a daughter.

Calling the report “groundless,” Chae demanded that the daily immediately issue a correction, adding that he would take a paternity test to prove the truth.

Lim, 54, said the child’s father is someone else who only happens to have the same surname as the prosecution chief.

“I gave birth to someone’s child for personal reasons, and registered his birth without a father,” Lim wrote in the letter.

But she used the official’s name for the child’s school records, because she wanted her son to become a person like him and to protect the child from social biases, she said.

Lim said she met Chae at her bar in Busan in 1999 when the official was serving in the city. She met him several times even after she moved to Seoul as Chae occasionally visited her restaurant with his colleagues and juniors.

“If we were in a relationship, Chae wouldn’t want to visit my restaurant with his colleagues,” she wrote.

The main opposition Democratic Party has been criticizing the report of Chae’s extramarital son, saying that it intended to sway the prosecution’s ongoing investigations into a number of politically sensitive cases.

The prosecution is currently investigating the state spy agency’s alleged political intervention during the last presidential election. Former NIS chief Won Sei-hoon and the ex-Seoul police chief have been indicted for their alleged roles in the political scandal.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)