Arrest Warrant for Choi Soon-sil Released!
An arrest warrant for Choi Soon-sil was issued Friday, November 4, 2016, by a local court. This is in relevance with her alleged involvement with abuse of authority and other irregularities that have threatened the incumbent administration.
This 60-year-old, who's known for being President Park Geun-hye's confidante, has been put under custody since Monday after hours of being cross-examined by prosecutors over a string of allegations. And now, after four days of being in custody, Seoul Central District Court officially issued an arrest warrant for Choi Soon-sil.
Choi Soon-sil faces accusations on conspiring with the former presidential secretary for policy coordination, An Chong-bum, on having local companies donate a huge amount of money to two nonprofit foundations, Mir and K-Sports. It was reported that An resigned from his position last Sunday along with other Park's top secretaries.
Although not a government official herself, this arrest warrant for Choi Soon-sil could lead her to be punished for abuse of authority, says a senior prosecutor. This is if she was proven guilty of colluding with the former presidential secretary, An. Aside from that, Choi is also facing an accusation of pocketing some 700 million won ($609,000) from the K-Sports Foundation. This is in relevance with two research projects pursued by Blue K, a company Choi controls on which, as prosecutors had found out, wasn't even able to present proposals for the said projects.
Other allegations concerning Choi include getting access to presidential documents and even interfering in the state decision-making processes. Although that is something that prosecutors are still working on.
The latest scandal that resulted to releasing an arrest warrant for Choi Soon-sil has caused President Park's approval rating to go down to a single digit and even caused protests across the country asking her to resign. Park has yet to issue an official statement regarding the scandal.
