'The Korean Rasputin', $68m and a horse: how Park Geun-hye fell from grace
In 2016, South Korea saw the start of a major corruption scandal involving its business and political elites that led to the unprecedented ousting of its head of state and first female President, Park Geun-hye.
On Friday, Ms Park was jailed for 24 years for bribery, abuse of power and coercion, but the seeds of her spectacular downfall were sown decades before her presidency, when her mother was tragically shot by a North Korean sympathiser in 1974.
The assassination forced the traumatised Ms Park, then 22, to become acting first lady to her father, dictator Park Chung-hee, and it was around this time that she fell under the influence of Choi Tae-min, a cult leader dubbed “the Korean Rasputin.”
US embassy cables released years later by WikiLeaks revealed that he gained “complete control over the body and soul” of Ms Park in her “formative” political years. She reportedly believed that he could communicate with her dead mother.
Her father was assassinated in 1979, by which point she was firm friends with Mr Choi’s daughter Choi Soon-sil, a few years her junior.
The public was shocked to learn in 2016 that forty years later, the younger Choi had taken on her father’s mantle as a shadowy adviser behind the throne, secretly advising Ms Park on everything from North Korea policy to her wardrobe choices, despite having no official clearance.
Ms Choi, now 60, was gradually revealed to be at the centre of accusations of corruption, influence peddling and leaks of classified information that eventually toppled Ms Park’s government and led to her arrest in March 2017.
Her demise was all the more dramatic as she had risen to power in 2013 pledging to fight graft.
However, even before the scandal broke, her reputation as a leading member of an aloof political elite had already cost her popularity.
This was compounded by her clumsy handling of the Sewol ferry disaster in April 2014, which killed over 300 people, most of them school children. For years afterwards she was forced to defend why her movements during the crucial moments of the disaster could not be accounted for.
The opening chapters of the saga that would crush her political career began unexpectedly in August 2016, when students at Ewha, an elite women’s university in Seoul, were protesting against changes to their degree course.
During their protest reports emerged of the university’s favouritism towards an equestrian athlete, Chung Yoo-ra, who turned out to be Choi Soon-sil’s daughter.
An investigation by parliament and prosecutors led to the indictment of Ewha’s former president and several professors, but the affair also struck a nerve among the nation’s youth, who are forced to study long hours in the fierce competition for university admission.
The discovery sparked a wider investigation into influence-peddling in Ms Park’s inner circle, which suddenly escalated in October with explosive revelations from broadcaster JTBC.
The channel had uncovered a tablet computer belonging to Ms Choi that contained documents revealing that she had received confidential presidential documents and edited key speeches.
On October 25 2016, Ms Park, with no immediate family of her own, admitted she had close ties to Ms Choi and apologised for “causing the nation grief”. But she denied any criminal wrongdoing.
Her apology did little to calm an increasingly enraged public. On the weekend of October 29, hundreds of thousands of people protested in Seoul in the first of six mass rallies calling for her resignation.
In November, investigators raided the headquarters of Samsung, the electronics giant. It emerged that Ms Choi had used her presidential connections to pressure conglomerates, including Samsung, to donate millions of dollars in donations to two non-profit foundations she controlled.
Profile | Park Geun-hye
By mid-December the efforts of prosecutors, backed by a tide of public opinion, prevailed. The president was impeached by parliament, a decision that was confirmed by the constitutional court in March 2017, forcing a snap election and opening her up to criminal prosecution.
Ms Park’s ten month trial, most of which she boycotted, revealed lurid details of a shady nexus between business and political elites.
Announcing the verdict on Friday, Judge Kim Se Yoon, ruled that major conglomerates including Samsung and Lotte had been forced to donate a total of £68million to Ms Choi’s non-profit foundations.
He was convicted over payments of £30.3m made to the foundations, as well as for giving a horse and several million dollars in assistance for Ms Choi’s daughter's equestrian career.
He maintained that he was not involved in the payment decisions and denied seeking any government favours, and was later freed in February after a court reduced and suspended his sentence.
Ms Choi received no such mercy. She was convicted of bribery and extortion, among other criminal charges, in February, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her former close friend, Park Geun-hye, will now join her behind bars, possibly for the remainder of their lives.
