Tokyo
Park is facing the worst crisis of her tumultuous four-year presidency after allegations that Choi Soon-sil, her close friend of four decades, has had undue influence on state affairs.
The case has incensed the country to the point where early on Tuesday, a 45-year-old man drove an excavator from a town about 150 miles south of Seoul and into the prosecutors’ office where Choi is being held, destroying the door. He later told police he wanted to “help Choi Soon-sil die as she said she committed a sin that deserves death,” the Yonhap news agency reported.
The Seoul central district prosecutors’ office has 48 hours to seek a warrant to formally arrest Choi, who is 60.
“Choi has denied all of the charges against her, and we’re concerned that she may destroy evidence,” a prosecution official said, according to Yonhap.
Fear of evidence destruction, as well as being a flight risk, are among the justifications for emergency detention.
“She has fled overseas in the past, and she doesn’t have a permanent address in South Korea, making her a flight risk,” the official told reporters. “She is also in an extremely unstable psychological state, and it’s possible an unexpected event could occur if she is released.”
Even in a country all too familiar with corruption scandals and noted for its explosive political crises, the current debacle is exceptional.
Choi is the daughter of the late Choi Tae-min, a kind of shaman-fortune teller who was close to Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, the military dictator who ruled South Korea during the 1960s and 1970s.
When Park’s mother was assassinated in 1974, Choi Tae-min became so close to the young Park that a U.S. Embassy cable once described him as a “Korean Rasputin.”
The Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported last week that Choi Tae-min, who founded a religious cult that incorporated elements of Christianity and Buddhism, would “deliver messages” to Park from her dead mother.