South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday demanded a
30-year-jail sentence for former president Park Geun-hye, sacked over a
wide-ranging corruption scandal which exposed shady links between big business
and politics and prompted massive street protests.
The 66-year-old daughter of a former dictator was
dismissed in March 2017 and has now been in custody for almost a year.
"We ask the court to hand down 30 years in
prison and (a fine of) 118.5 billion won ($110 million) for the accused, who
must take ultimate responsibility for the scandal as the 18th president of this
country," prosecutors said in a statement.
They said Park, in collusion with her secret
confidante and long-time friend Choi Soon-sil, took or was promised bribes
totalling 59.2 billion won ($52 million) from three South Korean companies,
Samsung, Lotte and SK, in return for policy favours.
Park has also been charged with coercing 18 large
firms to "donate" a total of 77.4 billion won to two dubious
foundations controlled by Choi.
The Seoul Central District Court earlier this
month found Choi guilty of abuse of power, bribery and interfering in
government business and sentenced her to 20 years in prison.
The verdict and sentence was seen as a potential
pointer to the decision in Park's separate trial in the same court, because 15
of the 18 charges Choi faced mirror charges against the ex-president.
A date for the verdict on Park may be announced at
the end of Tuesday's session.
"The accused (Park) abused her power
delegated by the people for private gain for Choi and herself... violated core
constitutional values on the protection of the market economy and free
democracy," the statement said.
"Consequently, the accused became the first
president to be sacked through impeachment, leaving an indelible scar on the
country's constitutional history."
The prosecutors also rebuked Park for
"allying with the chaebol instead of the people", in reference to the
country's family-controlled large conglomerates, accusing her of strengthening
"unhealthy ties between political power and economic power".
They also decried her attitude toward justice.
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'Cover up' -
When allegations about Choi's misdeeds started
surfacing in news media, Park tried to mislead public opinion and denounced the
reports as "political offensives", prosecutors said.
"When the court issued an arrest warrant for
the accused Park, she tried to cover up the true picture of the case by
describing the move as political revenge."
Park since October has stopped attending the
court, which she denounces as politically biased.
Some legal experts believe she is in an even worse
position than Choi was, noting that the judge who sentenced Choi had denounced
Park for having "delegated" presidential authority to a private
individual.
Park, daughter of late dictator Park Chung-Hee,
was brought up in Seoul's presidential Blue House.
The scandal sent her once-bulletproof approval
ratings to record lows, with tens of thousands taking to the streets for months
calling for her ousting. But she retained a loyal following from groups of
mainly older rival protesters.
Her downfall gave the left-leaning Democratic
Party the upper hand in the presidential election last May, which was easily
won by Moon Jae-in.
Approval ratings for Moon remain high, mainly due
to his down-to-earth image, pro-poor policies and pursuit of dialogue with
North Korea, as well as the success of the just-ended Pyeongchang Winter
Olymmpics.
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