SEOUL : South Korean prosecutors grilled the country’s just-ousted president on Tuesday in a long-awaited investigation of corruption allegations that ended her rule and now threaten to put her in jail.
The questioning of Park Geun-hye came 11 days after the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled to dismiss her over suspicions she colluded with a confidante to extort money from businesses and committed other wrongdoings. Her powers had been suspended since she was impeached by parliament in December.
“I am sorry to the people. I will sincerely undergo an investigation,” Park told reporters, without elaborating, when she arrived at the prosecutors’ office.
It was not clear if Park’s brief statement meant she acknowledged the corruption allegations, since she has repeatedly denied any legal wrongdoing. South Korean politicians embroiled in scandals often offer public apologies for causing trouble though they deny any involvement.
In Park’s questioning, expected to last until late in the evening, prosecutors were trying to determine whether to seek an arrest warrant, according to South Korean media. Many other suspects implicated in the scandal have already been arrested, including Park’s confidante Choi Soon-sil, some top government officials and Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong.
Prosecutors have previously accused Park of extortion, bribery and abuse of power, which could theoretically carry penalties of up to life imprisonment. But arresting Park would be a delicate matter because it might aggravate a national divide and create a strong conservative backlash ahead of an election in May to choose her successor, some political experts said.
Park’s scandal has roiled South Korea for months, with those opposing and supporting her rule staging massive rallies. After the March 10 Constitutional Court ruling, Park supporters clashed with police, leaving three dead. On Tuesday, hundreds of Park’s supporters waited for hours outside the prosecutors’ office, holding anti-impeachment signs and the national flag, which has become a symbol of their protest.
Park had immunity while in office and had refused to meet with prosecutors or allow officials to search her presidential compound. After leaving office, she has continued to reject the allegations, saying “I believe the truth will certainly come out.”
Park is the first democratically elected leader to be forced out of office in South Korea since democracy replaced dictatorship in the late 1980s.
It was a dramatic fall for Park, the daughter of slain dictator Park Chung-hee who became the country’s first female president in late 2012 with the backing of conservatives who remembered her father as a hero who pulled the country up from poverty despite his suppression of civil rights.
Moon Jae-in, a liberal who lost the 2012 presidential election to Park, currently has a commanding lead in opinion surveys for next leader.
S. Korea prosecutors grill Park over corruption allegations
S. Korea prosecutors grill Park over corruption allegations
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
