On Monday, prosecutors in South Korea announced that they have indicted former President Park Geun-hye on corruption and abuse of power charges that could send her to jail for life. Park, 65, was impeached in December, formally removed from office March 10, and arrested on March 30 amid a national scandal that has also swept up Park's longtime friend and confidante Choi Soon-Sil, government officials, and several top business executives, including Samsung heir apparent Lee Jae-yong and, on Monday, Shin Dong-bin, the chairman of South Korea's fifth-largest business conglomerate, Lotte Group.
Park has been housed in a detention center since her arrest, and during her expected six-month trial, South Koreans will see her stand trial in handcuffs and bound with rope, possibly in prison uniform, The Associated Press reports. A majority of South Koreans approved of her removal from office, but some of her conservative supporters are urging authorities to pardon Park, should she be convicted. South Korea will vote for her successor on May 9.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How China is battling the chikungunya virusUnder The Radar Thousands of cases of the debilitating disease have been found in the country
-
Deep thoughts: AI shows its math chopsFeature Google's Gemini is the first AI system to win gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad
-
Book reviews: 'Face With Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji' and 'Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story'Feature The surprising history of emojis and the brother duo who changed pop music
-
Trump picks conservative BLS critic to lead BLSspeed read He has nominated the Heritage Foundation's E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics
-
Trump takes over DC police, deploys National GuardSpeed Read The president blames the takeover on rising crime, though official figures contradict this concern
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crimeSpeed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
