Geun-ryeong and Ji-man reportedly requested in a letter to then-President Roh Tae-woo in 1990 to “save their sister” from Choi, who they accused of being deceitful. Park’s relations with her sister deteriorated in particular as they fought over the operation rights of Yookyoung Foundation in the 1990s.
Park was informed of the tragic news while in France. She was 22. The college graduate had planned to stay in the southeastern city of Grenoble at the foot of the French Alps for six months to hone her French. But she had to cut her stay short after being told that "something serious" had happened to her family. At the airport, she saw the front page article in a French newspaper running the story that her mother had been assassinated.
In his reports, Mr. Choo cited a legal dispute between Ms. Park’s brother, Park Ji-man, and his brother-in-law revolving around the brother-in-law’s accusations that Mr. Park had plotted to kill him and had hired as a hit man the Park relative found dead. (The brother-in-law, the husband of the Parks’ estranged younger sister, lost the case and served time in prison for slandering Mr. Park.)
Concerning her younger brother, the president stressed, "Ji-man and his wife have never visited Cheong Wa Dae and will not come until the end of my term. After witnessing how previous presidents managed their relatives, I forbade Ji-man and his wife from coming to Cheong Wa Dae."
The allegations of involvement by Chung’s wife Choi Sun-sil (who has since changed her name to Choi Seo-won) shouldn’t be taken lightly either. The closeness of Choi’s relationship to Park has some suggesting she, rather than her husband, could be the one behind the MCST meddling. Indeed, while Chung has denied being involved himself (he was Park’s Chief of Staff when she was a second-term lawmaker), he was less adamant about the possibility that his wife was. “That I don‘t know,” he was reported as saying when asked about it. There’s also talk about frequent Blue House visits by Choi - and about a Presidential Security Service staffer being replaced when he raised questions about them.
Ever since Ms. Park took office two years ago, her critics have charged her government with using legal channels to clamp down on free speech, especially about matters concerning Ms. Park and her family. ...And late last year, several of Ms. Park’s presidential aides filed a defamation lawsuit against the local daily Segye Ilbo after it reported internal documents leaked from her office. Some of the documents contained allegations that the aides — as well as Chung Yoon-hoi, the man Mr. Park was rumored to have met in secret in April — had conspired to promote people they favored in her government.Ms. Park’s government called the allegations “groundless rumors.” During her New Year’s news conference on Monday, she accused those spreading such rumors of causing national confusion.
In the article published ahead of the 2012 presidential election, Baek cited rumors that President Park and late pastor Choi Tae-min had an illegitimate son together.
Lee was also charged for his satirical portrayals of politicians including former president Lee Myung-bak and incumbent President Park Geun-hye
President Park was the chairwoman of the foundation at the time, but a civic group criticized her and pastor Choi Tae-min, her mentor, for their dictatorial way of running the organization. The group demanded Park Geun-ryeong be named as chairwoman. After the power struggle, the younger Park won control over the foundation. Since then, the rift between the sisters has deepened, and the younger Park has tried to derail her sister’s political path. ...In October 2008, the younger Park married Shin, who is 14 years younger, but the elder Park did not attend the wedding. In 2009, Shin was indicted for defaming the elder Park by claiming she had plotted to kidnap him and have him removed to China and murdered. Shin was ordered to serve 18 months in prison, a sentence that started in 2012.
The presidential office flatly denied all charges. “There is no need to mention the given allegations as they are not true,” presidential spokesperson Jung Youn-kuk told reporters Tuesday.
Her rival, who is identified only with her last name Kim, won the competition in dressage. Immediately after the contest, police officers investigated the head judge on a corruption allegation. He was quoted as saying that he had no idea why he was investigated and asked the police if there was any evidence to support his involvement in the corruption case. The investigators were quoted as saying that they were "informed" about possible corruption in the selection of the winner of the competition by an unspecified source. The judge was released as the police found no evidence.
Choi allegedly had access to top-secret national security documents, influenced personnel appointments in the Park administration, and apparently was involved in top decisions. ... Earlier this month, Chief of Staff Lee adamantly denied media reports that Choi had reviewed and edited Park’s speeches in advance. Park, however, issued a televised apology Tuesday for having allowed Choi to do so, prompting criticism that the Blue House had attempted to cover up Choi’s role and power. ...Choi is accused of creating the foundations as slush-funds for President Park after she leaves office. Park denied the allegation.
Prosecutors: The President’s resistance is unacceptable
“It has been like how sorcery works,” said Chung Doo-un, a former three-term lawmaker from the president’s own Saenuri Party. “For Park, the elder Choi has been someone like a demigod, and I assume it is the case until now. I don’t think there is another way to explain such a relationship but this.”According to a media report earlier in the week, Park Ji-man had described the president as acting strangely, as if she was “hypnotized,” whenever talking about Choi Soon-sil. The conservation was reportedly with former Cheong Wa Dae official Park Gwan-chun, one of the first among Park’s aides to expose the alleged influence-peddling of Choi to the public.Kim Tae-hyung, a psychologist who published his own analysis of President Park in 2015, said Park, who lost her parents when she was young, has a “commitment issue,” and the childhood trauma has prompted her to rely too much on the Chois. “Psychologically speaking, I think the president was held hostage by the Chois,” said Kim. “I don’t think the president has the ability to address the crisis. Since they cannot help now, I’m afraid she may undergo a mental breakdown.”
When Choi Tae-min died in 1994, at age 78, Park’s reliance upon him had not dwindled -- it had only moved onto his daughter, Soon-sil, who has also recently been known as Seo-won.Shortly before he died, the late cult leader made more eccentric remarks than ever, according to magazine articles at the time. He reportedly said in public occasions that he was communicating directly with God and that his blood was white in color, unlike ordinary people.
The return came a day after prosecutors raided homes of presidential aides suspected of being involved in the process, as the investigators accelerated their probe into the case.They also attempted to raid the offices of the aides, but the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae refused them entry, citing the need to protect state secrets. ... Prosecutors said they attempted to raid the offices a second time Sunday morning but were again denied entry.Instead of allowing the investigators to directly search the offices, the presidential office is known to be providing documents demanded by the prosecution, which it did on Saturday as well. Prosecutors, however, earlier said the documents provided on the first raid attempt fell short of their requirements and were rather insignificant materials.
Choi Soon-sil was seen in photographs with Park from 1979 when Park, as eldest daughter of then-President Park Chung-hee, was filling in as first lady for her assassinated mother. Park’s father, who took power in a military coup in 1961, was shot dead by his disgruntled spy chief later in 1979.Choi was someone “who gave me help when I was going through a difficult time,” Park said in a brief televised address Tuesday. Choi Soon-sil’s ex-husband also served as a top aide to Park until her presidential election victory in 2012.
Last but not least, Choi’s daughter, a competitive equestrian rider, is given a suspect admission into an elite women’s college, which suddenly creates a special entrance category for students who excel in equestrian sports. When Choi’s daughter comes in second in a national equestrian competition in 2013, Park fires eight senior officials of the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism, and the Korean Equestrian Foundation is investigated and audited.In 1974, a disaffected Japanese-Korean would attempt to assassinate President Park during a public speech. The agile Park ducks, and the bullet hits his wife who is sitting behind him. Mayhem results. Eventually the assassin is subdued and the first lady’s dying corpse is dragged out. Park returns to the podium, dusts off his jacket, and then says, without flinching or hesitating, “As I was saying…” and continues his speech, as if nothing had happened. Stoicism or psychopathy? The historical record points to the latter.
Other allegations involve Choi and a close acquaintance using their influence in a corporate takeover, signaling that her influence extended beyond political affairs. Choi and film director Cha Eun-taek and other aides are suspected of pressing a small advertising company to sell its shares in Poreka, an advertising affiliate of steel maker Posco that was later taken over by the advertising company Comm. Together. A source from Comm. Together confirmed that the movie director and close friends threatened the advertising company.
Presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk made the appeal when asked about yet another allegation that Choi Soon-sil, at the center of the scandal, had entered and left the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae without going through a security check since Park took office in February 2013. Choi is a private citizen with no security clearance.
Jeon also shared a story about a “trembling” Park - then leader of the Hannara Party - calling someone for advice in 2006 when the opposition Uri Party attempted to force a National Assembly vote on the relocation of South Korea’s administrative capital from Seoul to Sejong (Jeon was Hannara spokesperson at the time).“The capital relocation vote was a very urgent, very serious situation, and [Park] was just trembling,” said Jeon, who was a party spokesperson at the time. “I got so frustrated that I said, ‘Why don’t you just call [the person you usually do]?” she recalled. “No sooner did I finish speaking than she went to her corner and called. I saw that, and my heart just sank.”
After her mother was assassinated, Park became close not only to Choi Tae-min but also to one of his daughters, Choi Soon-sil, who is four years younger than Park. South Korean media are reporting that Choi Soon-sil “inherited” her father’s ability to communicate with Park’s mother, and that she took on the role of delivering messages from beyond the grave after the elder Choi died.
Her lawyer said her plea for forgiveness and her legal accountability are two different things. She, however, refuses to answer and denies the hard evidence and testimonies against her. Even the investigators are stunned by her audacity.
Prosecutors also put An under emergency detention Wednesday night, saying he's denying the charges against him and has pressured other key witnesses to give false statements. Unless put into custody, An is also feared to destroy evidence, they said. Prosecutors have 48 hours to request a warrant to formally arrest him.
Even reporters who were pestering the Unification Ministry to quickly release a statement would sometimes give up and go home when the ministry repeatedly said that there had been “no contact from the Blue House.” Officials with a more detailed understanding of the situation told us why the statements were taking so long: after the ministry submitted a draft statement to Park, she would send it back after editing it with a red pen. Now I find myself unsure whether the person holding the red pen was Park or Choi.There was also something mysterious about how appointments and decisions were made. Drafts of policies and candidates for senior positions at government ministries are submitted to the president via the offices of Blue House senior secretaries and Blue House personal secretaries. Some of the policy drafts and appointments that were sent back were marked with circles, triangles and X marks. A circle indicated that the plan should be executed while an X mark meant that the plan should not be executed. But people working at the Blue House often complained that they didn’t know what in the world the triangle was supposed to mean.
I saw Choi in 1993 after he suggested we meet up. He was going around with six bodyguards -- big guys, which some people said looked like thugs. Choi told me that Park Geun-hye would become president and asked me to help with her campaign. He said that her election campaign should be staffed by the 700,000 members of the Geunhwa Volunteer Group around the country, and he wanted me to be in charge. He told me there was a balance of 1.3 billion won at the Anguk branch of Chohung Bank and that there was 90 million won left in interest.
Park Seung-joo, the nominee for minister of public safety and security, believes he's lived "47 previous lives" and there is a "black box" that contains all the information about him in the sky.
Choi Soon-sil, who held no official position in the government, gave policy instructions to one of President Park Geun-hye’s most trusted aides over the phone as if she were his boss, according to recordings of conversations between Choi and Jeong Ho-seong, a former personal secretary for Park for 18 years, which were recently obtained by prosecutors.
The Blue House was involved in helping one cosmetic surgery clinic, allegedly frequented by Choi Soon-sil and her daughter, to expand its business overseas - and when its attempt to help the clinic was impeded, it went after a consulting firm that graded the clinic as unsuitable for business expansion, broadcaster JTBC reported Tuesday.
Prosecutors have found a recording of a phone call in which President Park Geun-hye orders a presidential secretary to show copies of a speech and other confidential Cheong Wa Dae documents to her friend Choi Soon-sil. The audio file found on Jeong Ho-seong's mobile phone has Park telling him to pass the documents to Choi and find out what she thinks, prosecutors said Wednesday. In another audio file Jeong tells Park that he "sent" the documents to Choi. When presented with the audio files, Jeong admitted the charges. Jeong, a Park aide for nearly two decades, initially claimed that he did not know Choi and denied handing over documents to her.
It held responsible two officers at the intelligence bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, Choi Gyeong-rak and Han, but Choi committed suicide after questioning. He had said the Blue House coerced Han into making a false confession.
A prosecutor involved in the case recently told reporters that "only 10 seconds of an audio file would be long enough for people to storm the streets with torches, instead of candles." The prosecutor was referring to nearly 50 audio files found on two confiscated smartphones of Jung Ho-sung, Park's close aide, who was arrested recently for allegedly leaking confidential presidential documents to Choi.
The expenses report showed that Choi and Chung charged Samsung even for the smallest expenses. The details ranged from 2.1 euros for a cup of coffee and 4.9 euros for ice cream.
