Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Prosecutors want Park arrested on bribery, abuse of power charges

SEOUL — South Korean prosecutors said yesterday that they were seeking to arrest former president Park Geun-hye on charges of bribery, abuse of power and other criminal charges.

SEOUL — South Korean prosecutors said yesterday that they were seeking to arrest former president Park Geun-hye on charges of bribery, abuse of power and other criminal charges.

Whether they can arrest Ms Park, who was removed from office in a historic court ruling this month, will depend on whether the Seoul District Court will issue an arrest warrant.

The court will convene a hearing on the matter on Thursday. The decision is likely to come either later that day or early on Friday.

In announcing the move yesterday to seek an arrest warrant, the South Korean prosecutors’ office said there was reason to suspect that Ms Park would try to destroy evidence.

“The suspect abused her power by using her tremendous status and authority as president to help collect funds from businesses,” prosecutors said in a statement.

“Although there have been a number of pieces of evidence collected, the suspect has denied most of them and there is a danger of her destroying incriminating evidence if she is not arrested.”

If arrested, Ms Park would be the first former South Korean leader jailed since two former military dictators were imprisoned on corruption and mutiny charges in the mid-1990s.

Once Ms Park is under arrest, the prosecutor will have up to 20 days to continue investigations, by which time they must formally file charges against her and put her on trial.

Ms Park’s lawyers did not respond to the warrant, but Mr Kim Sung-won, a spokesman for the Liberty Korea Party, to which Ms Park belongs, called the prosecutors’ decision to seek her arrest “regrettable”.

More than 100 of her mostly older supporters assembled near her house in southern Seoul, pledging to protect her. “Let’s all gather at her home ... to protect the president!” the online community for her admirers said.

The opposition Democratic Party said the move to arrest Ms Park was “historic”.

“Former president Park has never properly acknowledged or apologised for the abusive manipulation of government affairs by her and her associates,” said Mr Youn Kwan-suk, a Democratic Party spokesman.

Ms Park, 65, became South Korea’s first democratically elected president to be removed from office when a constitutional court upheld her parliamentary impeachment this month.

She is accused of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to donate to two foundations set up to back the former president’s policy initiatives. Both Ms Park and Choi have denied any wrongdoing.

Ms Park could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from bosses of big conglomerates, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y Lee, in return for favours.

Ms Park has apologised to the country but said she never gained personally from money that came from family-run conglomerates known as chaebol.

Her impeachment has left a political vacuum in South Korea, with only an interim president pending a May 9 election, at a time of rising tensions with North Korea over its weapons programme and China, which is angry over South Korea’s decision to host a United States anti-missile unit.

Ms Park was questioned for 21 hours by prosecutors last week.

AGENCIES

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.