South Korean prosecutors yesterday indicted former president Moon Jae-in for bribery, making him the latest former leader of the country to face legal troubles in a case linked to the appointment of his then-son-in-law to a lucrative no-show job at a Thai airline.
Moon’s indictment adds him to a long list of South Korean leaders who have faced trials or scandals at the close of their terms or after leaving office.
Moon, 72, was indicted for bribery, while in the same case former lawmaker Lee Sang-jik was indicted for bribery and breach of trust, the Jeonju District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
Photo: AP
Prosecutors had been investigating whether Lee’s appointment as the head of the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency was in exchange for Moon’s former son-in-law getting a job and receiving a salary plus living expenses at the budget carrier Thai Eastar Jet, which Lee controlled from 2018 to 2020, the statement said.
The prosecution said that the money Moon’s son-in-law received as an executive director, totaling 5.95 million baht (US$177,633), was irregular and constituted a bribe to the then-president, adding that the son-in-law was hired even though he had no work experience in the airline industry.
He spent only brief periods at the company’s office in Thailand and carried out only minor duties, while claiming to be working remotely from South Korea, it said.
Prosecutors referenced previous bribery cases involving former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, both of whom were convicted and jailed, as precedents for Moon’s indictment.
Moon’s party condemned the prosecution, calling the indictment “politically motivated” and “an abuse of unchecked prosecutorial power.”
“So the salary paid to the son-in-law was a bribe to the president? Is this the best logic they could come up with after dragging the case out for four long years?” Democratic Party spokeswoman Park Kyung-mee said in a statement.
The liberal-leaning Moon, a lawyer and a civil rights activist, was president from 2017 to 2022.
Moon’s successor, Yoon Suk-yeol, was removed from office this month after being impeached over his short-lived imposition of martial law last year. The conservative former leader, who had denied wrongdoing, is on trial on criminal charges of insurrection.
South Korea is holding a snap election to pick a new leader on June 3, with the liberal-leaning Lee Jae-myung from the same Democratic Party as Moon the front-runner in opinion polls to win the race.
Additional reporting by AFP
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