AKIPRESS. COM – It has been an inauspicious return to crisis-plagued South Korea for former U. N. chief Ban Ki-moon, once the odds-on favorite to be the next president, who has been ensnared in a family corruption scandal and struggled with a skeptical press, reported Reuters.
Ban, 72, has been unable to capitalize on his much-anticipated homecoming after a decade as secretary-general of the United Nations in New York. Since his return on Jan. 12, he has cut a sometimes-irritable figure in public and been pilloried for a series of perceived PR gaffes – all without announcing any intention to run for president.
Now the United States has asked South Korea to arrest his brother, Ban Ki-sang, on charges that he engaged in a bribery scheme to carry out the sale of a Vietnamese building complex.
The timing of the case could hardly be worse for Ban, whose high international profile and clean image were expected to be assets as he returned to a nation reeling from a presidential corruption scandal.
