South Korea’s ousted president Park Geun-Hye arrived at a detention center near Seoul early Friday after being arrested over the…
SEOUL —
South Korea’s ousted president Park Geun-Hye arrived at a detention center near Seoul early Friday after being arrested over the corruption and abuse of power scandal that brought her down.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered Park’s arrest on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets, after a marathon court hearing the previous day.
“It is justifiable and necessary to arrest (Park) as key charges were justified and there is risk of evidence being destroyed,” the court said in a statement.
Television footage of the former leader showed her looking grim and staring straight ahead as she left the prosecutor’s office to be taken into custody.
Despite the early hour, when Park arrived at the jail in a black sedan at around 4.45 a.m., about 50 supporters were at the gates to greet her, waving national flags and chanting slogans demanding her release.
Park, 65, becomes the third former leader to be arrested over corruption in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, where politics and big business have long been closely tied.
She will now be processed and placed in a cell after changing into prison garb with her prisoner number emblazoned on the chest.
Being taken into custody is a dramatic step in the disgrace of South Korea’s first woman president, and was a key demand of the millions of people who took to the streets to protest against her as the scandal engulfed her leadership last year.
The former leader was grilled for nearly nine hours in court Thursday as a judge deliberated whether she should be arrested.
She was stripped of her immunity when she was dismissed from office by the country’s top court earlier this month.
