By Jung Min-ho
Former President Park Geun-hye will be questioned Tuesday at the Seoul Detention Center, her first interrogation since being taken into custody on bribery and other charges in the presidential scandal involving her friend Choi Soon-sil.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said Monday that Han Woong-jae, one of the two prosecutors who interrogated Park two weeks ago, will visit the detention facility in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, to question her.
One or two assistant prosecutors from the team investigating the scandal may accompany him.
Unlike the questioning at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office where she was summoned and prosecutors focused on listening to her side of the story, Han is expected to be more aggressive this time to extract a confession.
Signs are already palpable that prosecutors have become more reluctant to give her special treatment.
Prosecutors initially asked her to come to their office ― with her hands handcuffed ― for questioning, which was rejected by her lawyers because of her psychological state and for security reasons. Due to time constraints, they then decided to send investigators to her instead.
Many were surprised that the prosecution, which was long criticized for being slow and political in investigating the scandal, dared to ask the former president to visit the office.
Park has so far denied all the charges against her, but this strategy appears to have failed. Her flat-out denials even in the face of solid evidence hurt herself politically and eventually led to her impeachment and removal from office. This attitude was also one of the reasons behind a court issuing an arrest warrant for her over the risk of the destruction of evidence.
Lawyer Yoo Young-ha, who has been playing a leading role in defending Park, is reportedly struggling to get along with other lawyers in her nine-member team.
Park Ji-man, her brother, is reportedly trying to help her find new faces to revamp the legal team. Some observers say his lawyer wife, Seo Hyang-hee, may join the defense soon.
Park Ji-man, Seo and Yoo all visited the former president at the detention center Monday morning.
With all the key suspects in the scandal pinning responsibility on each other, prosecutors are considering calling some of them in for joint-questioning.
Park, who is charged with 13 crimes, including bribery, abuse of authority and the passing of confidential state information to an unauthorized person ― Choi, claims that she did not do anything illegal or order her aides to do so to support Choi.
But former presidential secretaries ― An Chong-bum and Jeong Ho-seong ― who have been indicted for their roles in the scandal have insisted that they just carried out her orders.
One of the key tasks for investigators is to prove the bribery charge against Park and Choi, who allegedly colluded in taking money from major companies, including Samsung, in return for business favors.
While Park and Choi claim the companies voluntarily made “donations” to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, which were controlled by Choi, the companies insist they were forced to do so by Park.
However, prosecutors think all of them are lying. They believe Park and Choi made backdoor deals with the companies and the two shared the profits from the deals. In return, prosecutors have accused Park of abusing her power for the interests of the companies, for example, by granting pardons for their owners.
Depending on the nature of the money Park and Choi received from the companies, prosecutors will indict the two on charges of either abuse of authority or bribery, which is a more serious crime that could put them in prison for life.
Meanwhile, the prosecution plans to send Choi to a different detention center in Seoul because of concerns that she may contact Park to coordinate their stories while they are in the same facility.
The prosecution also said it plans to question Woo Byung-woo, another key suspect in the scandal, Thursday, over abuse of power and dereliction of duty among other allegations.