[Press Corps]
State prosecutors asked for a court-approved warrant Monday to arrest South Korea's ousted leader Park Geun-hye, citing concerns that she may try to destroy evidence, a week after they resumed a probe into her involvement in a corruption scandal.
The prosecutors said Park seriously abused her "powerful status and authority" to let her crony collect money from businessmen and leaked state secrets. "A lot of evidence has been gathered, but as the suspect denies most crimes there is a concern about her destroying evidence," they said in a statement. The prosecutors added it would be unfair not to seek an arrest warrant considerating that others involved in the scandal have already been arrested.
If a court agrees, she would be the country's third ex-president to be arrested following Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan, the two former generals who seized power through a coup following the assassination of Park's father in late 1979, sparking a popular uprising in the southern city of Gwangju.
Last week, the disgraced ex-president was released from a marathon investigation. As a criminal suspect, she was questioned all night for bribery, abuse of power, coercion, the leak of state secrets and other allegations. She is suspected of helping her jailed crony, Choi Soon-sil, to collect money from top business groups in return for business favors. Jay Y. Lee, the de facto leader of Samsung Group, has been arrested and indicted on charges of giving bribes to Choi.
Park, who took office in early 2013, was impeached by parliament on December 9 at the height of anti-government protests. The constitutional court upheld her impeachment on March 10, accusing her of betraying the confidence of voters, and she was expelled from office two days later.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
