Aide to Assembly Speaker banned from traveling overseas

A close aide to parliamentary speaker Park Hee-tae has been barred from leaving Korea for alleged involvement in a snowballing scandal in which bribes were used to buy votes in the ruling party's leadership race in 2008, officials said Saturday.

The move came as prosecutors stepped up their investigation into allegations that Park offered bribes to fellow lawmakers to get elected to the top post of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) in 2008. After serving as the party chief for two years, he became the Assembly speaker in 2010.