Choi Soon-sil denies collusion with President

Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, walks into courtroom 417 for her first hearing at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul, Monday. She denied all charges leveled against her including extortion and abuse of power. / Joint press corps

Choi actively defends herself, says tablet PC does not belong to her

By Lee Kyung-min

Choi Soon-sil, the central figure of the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her associates, denied all the charges against her, including the allegation of collusion with Park and her key aides, at her first court hearing Monday.

Asked by the presiding judge at the Seoul Central District Court: “Is it true that you deny all the charges?” she replied, “Yes.”

In a white prison uniform, she appeared at courtroom 417 at 2:10 p.m. This is the first time that she has appeared in public in a prison uniform. Presidential aides An Chong-bum and Jeong Ho-seong, who were indicted as Choi’s accomplices, were not at the hearing.

It was a pretrial session held for the court to hear the positions of the prosecution and the defense ahead of the start of the actual trial. The accused are not obliged to appear for these proceedings, and it was widely expected that Choi might not show up. But she presented herself to the court, indicating that she was determined to defend herself proactively.

“I’ll engage myself in the trial faithfully,” Choi said. “When I just came back from Germany, I said I would take my lumps. But now I’ll clarify myself.”

Choi’s denial of the charges came after President Park also denied all the accusations made in the impeachment motion against her.

While court proceedings are not usually open to the media for video recording or photograph taking, the presiding judge allowed it in this case, taking into account the public’s immense interest.

Lee Kyung-jae, the attorney representing Choi, flatly denied the prosecution’s accusation that she conspired with President Park and key aide An.

“The prosecution has claimed that Choi colluded with the President in eight counts of breaches of the law. But Choi has never colluded with the President. It cannot constitute a crime as there was no collusion,” Lee told reporters after the hearing.

He also denied allegation that Choi conspired with Park’s aide An in the scandal.

An and Choi are suspected of forcing more than 50 business groups to provide about 77.4 billion won ($66.2 million) to two foundations — K Sports and Mir — set up and managed by Choi.

They were indicted on charges of extortion, attempted extortion and abuse of power; and additionally Jeong allegedly gave classified Cheong Wa Dae documents to Choi.

Lee also said that Choi does not want to have her case tried under the jury system.

Prosecutors said they would present a tablet PC as evidence, which allegedly belonged to Choi and contained confidential state documents.

They will also present a conversation between Choi and Jeong, recorded on Jeong’s phone, and notes kept by An, both confiscated during earlier searches.

Choi’s attorney said the tablet PC does not belong to her, saying he would ask the court to have the National Forensic Service examine it to verify whether it belonged to Choi.

In the hearing, 80 citizens who won audience seats through a draw also came to see the high-profile case.

Kim In-sook, in her 50s, said that she has been looking forward to seeing Choi. "I don’t usually follow the news closely, but I did for this scandal. Who didn’t? I wanted to see Choi’s face in person. I wanted to be one of people who are in the courtroom to make sure that people are watching her and to convey the enormous frustration and anger they are feeling.”

The next pre-trial session for Choi will be held Dec. 29.

Another pre-trial session was held afterward for other figures involved in the scandal, including visual art director Cha Eun-taek and former CEO of the Korea Creative Content Agency Song Sung-gak.

Cha is facing charges of attempted coercion for conspiring with Choi to pressure a small advertizing company head, who acquired the former in-house advertising company of POSCO, to hand over 80 percent of its shares to him.

Courtroom 417 is where former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo stood in 1996 on trial for creating slush funds. At that time as well, the judge allowed photographs to be taken for 90 seconds.