Park wears blue pantsuit with prisoner number and no makeup
SEOUL — South Korea’s ousted president Park Geunhye, grim-faced and brought to court in handcuffs, went on trial on Tuesday over a sprawling corruption scandal that saw millions of people take to the streets and led to her downfall.
Only two months after leaving the presidential palace in disgrace, Park appeared at the Seoul Central District Court with a badge bearing her prisoner number pinned to her blue pantsuit, and no makeup.
She avoided meeting the glance of her longtime confidante and co-accused Choi Soon-sil.
The trial, expected to last for months, is the final act in the drama that engulfed Park.
Presiding judge Kim Se-yun, who heads a three-man panel — there is no jury — asked her: “What is your occupation, the accused Park Geun-hye?”
She responded: “I don’t have any occupation.”
Park, 65, is the third former South Korean leader to stand trial for corruption.
She was impeached by parliament in December after mass demonstrations — that built on economic and social frustrations — to demand her removal over a scandal centered on Choi, her friend of 40 years, and implicating some of the country’s top businessmen.
She was detained soon after her dismissal — Tuesday’s court session was her first public appearance since then — and indicted on 18 charges including bribery, coercion and abuse of power for offering governmental favors to tycoons who bribed Choi.
Cozy ties
Cozy and corrupt ties between South Korea’s business and political elites have endured for decades and the trial could shed new light on the links between Park and the bosses of the family-run conglomerates that dominate Asia’s fourth-biggest economy.
They include Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, who is being tried separately, and Shin Dong-bin, the chairman of retail giant Lotte, the South’s fifth-biggest conglomerate, who was among the accused on Tuesday.
Choi, the daughter of a religious figure who was Park’s mentor for years, is similarly accused of using her presidential ties to force top firms to “donate” nearly $70 million to nonprofit foundations which she then used for personal gain.
Prosecutors told the court