Prosecutor Pushes for Indictment of South Korean President in Samsung Scandal -<br />By CHOE SANG-HUNMARCH 6, 2017<br />SEOUL, South Korea — A special prosecutor in South Korea asked state prosecutors on Monday to indict President Park Geun-hye on bribery charges, saying<br />that Ms. Park and her secretive confidante conspired to take $38 million in bribes from Samsung, one of the world’s largest technology companies.<br />On Monday, Ms. Park’s lawyer, Yu Young-ha, rejected the special prosecutor’s findings, saying his investigation was “politically biased”<br />and “lacking in fairness.” He called the bribery allegation “an absurd fiction.”<br />But on Monday, Mr. Park, the special prosecutor, who is not related to Ms. Park, said his team found enough evidence<br />that Ms. Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, conspired to collect bribes from Samsung.<br />“Future court proceedings will reveal the truth.”<br />On Monday, Mr. Park, the special prosecutor, said that the president should also face a criminal charge of abusing official power, saying she conspired with aides to blacklist thousands of artists, writers<br />and movie directors deemed unfriendly to her government and exclude them from government-funded support programs.<br />Mr. Lee offered the bribes in return for political favors from Ms. Park, most notably government support for a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015<br />that helped him inherit corporate control of the Samsung conglomerate from his incapacitated father, Lee Kun-hee, the prosecutor said.<br />On Monday, the special prosecutor said Ms. Park and Ms. Choi had 573 phone conversations between April<br />and October last year using cellphones issued under borrowed names.
