Former President Chun Doo-hwan, who owes a massive fine to state coffers, has made a request to look into the records of a prosecution investigation into his bribe-taking in the 1990s, prosecution officials said Monday.

After undergoing an intensive prosecution probe into slush fund allegations between 1995 and 1996, Chun was ordered by the nation‘s top court in 1997 to return to the state coffers 220 billion won ($196.8 million) that he was found to have illegally accumulated during his military rule from 1980 to 1988.

The former dictator, however, has so far paid only a quarter of the total, with some 167.2 billion won remaining unpaid.

According to a task force within the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, Chun‘s lawyer has applied to view the investigative records into Chun’s bribery charges.

Prosecutors said they will first review the application before deciding whether or not to release the 1995-1996 investigative documents.

“There are things that we can give and things that we cannot give. We have to review (the request) in terms of the law,” a prosecutor of the task force said.

Chun‘s move is largely seen as a legal maneuver in an effort to not pay the massive fines, according to legal experts.

Chun has so far refused to pay the fine, saying he is nearly penniless.

“It is true that (Chun) accepted the bribes from the conglomerates during his presidential term. However, he has used the money as political funds and paid the rest to the prosecution,” Chun’s lawyer claimed.

In 1996, there were seven major business conglomerates that gave money to Chun, but none were indicted because the statute of limitations had expired. Some of the business groups included Hyundai Group and Samsung Group, which both gave 22 billion won to Chun.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said they have put two experienced accounting agents on the task force as part of efforts to find alleged hidden assets of Chun and his family members.

There has been a public outcry about a delay in collecting the former president‘s unpaid fines as the statute of limitations for Chun’s case will expire in October. Under a revision, Chun is required to pay the remainder of his fines by October 2020. (Yonhap News)