Kang Sung-geun states Schatten involved in Hwang-gate fraud

from english.chosun: Prosecutors say circumstantial evidence suggests that the disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk's former collaborator Prof. Gerald Schatten was from the beginning involved in the faking of stem cell research. They said the University of Pittsburgh academic co-wrote a now discredited paper on patient-specific stem cells published last year although he knew that stem cell lines supposedly documented in the paper had become contaminated. The charge contradicts the U.S. university's own investigation, which cleared Schatten of any deliberate distortions.
Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office quoted a witness as saying Hwang told Schatten when they met at a seminar overseas in January last year that stem cells nos. 4 to 7 supposedly produced from cloned embryos had become contaminated. They said Schatten urged Hwang to go ahead with publication regardless since the stem cells had clearly been produced. The testimony came from Prof. Kang Sung-geun of Seoul National University, who attended the seminar with Hwang.

Prosecutors have e-mailed Schatten, who late last year publicly broke with Hwang, a 130-point questionnaire, asking among other things if he was aware of the stem cell contamination at the SNU lab, if he suggested publishing the paper despite it, and why he severed ties with Hwang.