S Korea’s Park to face December impeachment vote
president. Park has issued public apologies and also promised to submit herself to an expanding probe by state prosecutors, as well as a separate investigation by an independent special prosecutor to be appointed by parliament.
‘Co-culprit’
Prosecutors said on Sunday Park had colluded with Choi, branding the president a “coculprit”. They said Park would be probed as a suspect, pushing to interrogate her directly – a move which would make her the first sitting South Korean president to be quizzed by prosecutors.
Park’s lawyer has dismissed the probe’s findings as a “house of cards” built on “imagination and guesswork”, declaring she would not submit herself to the “politically biased” prosecutors’ questioning.
Even if the impeachment vote gets two-thirds support at parliament there is no guarantee the country’s conservative Constitutional Court will approve it, even as the snowballing scandal continues to hit South Korean household names.
Prosecutors on Thursday raided the finance ministry and the headquarters of two of the country’s most powerful companies.
SK and Lotte have been accused of making huge donations to foundations linked with Choi in return for lucrative state licences for duty-free businesses.
The raid came a day after pros- ecutors searched the headquarters of Samsung Group over allegations it had bribed Choi to win state approval for a controversial merger it sought last year.
Park faces allegations that her government offered policy favours to the companies that provided contributions to Choi’s foundations.
Several heads of the country’s top firms, including Samsung and Hyundai, have been interviewed by prosecutors, shedding light on the unhealthy ties between the government and conglomerates that have endured for decades.
Public anger towards Park escalated earlier this month at one of the largest – and loudest – antigovernment protests the country had ever witnessed.