Seoul
AP
—
The 82-year-old leader of the Unification Church was arrested in South Korea early Tuesday as investigators probe allegations that the church bribed the wife of jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker.
Hak Ja Han the widow of the church’s South Korean founder, Sun Myung Moon, has denied allegations that she directed church officers to bribe Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, and the lawmaker.
The Seoul Central District Court authorized investigators’ request for an arrest warrant for Han, saying she posed a threat of destroying proof.
Han didn’t converse to reporters as she arrived on the Seoul courtroom on Monday for a listening to on the warrant request. After an hourslong listening to, the courtroom issued its determination in the early hours of Tuesday as Han awaited the decision at a detention middle close to Seoul, the place she’s going to now be held.
The Unification Church had criticized investigators’ try to arrest Han, noting that she appeared for questioning final week whereas nonetheless recovering from a coronary heart process earlier this month, and accused them of disrespecting an “internationally respected religious leader.”
Kim was arrested and charged last month on allegations together with bribery, inventory manipulation and meddling in the collection of a legislative candidate.
The lawmaker, Kweon Seong-dong, a staunch Yoon loyalist, who was arrested final week, has denied receiving cash from the church. Investigators additionally final week visited the headquarters of his conservative People Power Party to acquire paperwork for inspecting claims that Unification Church members signed up en masse forward of the social gathering’s 2023 management race to spice up Kweon’s candidacy.
The investigation into Kim is one among three particular prosecutor probes launched below Seoul’s new liberal authorities concentrating on Yoon’s presidency. The others concentrate on Yoon’s planning and execution of his short-lived martial regulation imposition on Dec. 3 and his authorities’s alleged cover-up of a marine’s drowning dying throughout a 2023 flood rescue operation.
Yoon’s martial regulation lasted just a few hours earlier than the liberal-led legislature voted to elevate it. He was impeached later in December and formally faraway from workplace in April. He was re-arrested in July and now faces riot and different costs.
Kim has been investigated over numerous felony allegations, stemming from occasions each earlier than and through her husband’s presidency. The suspicions embody accepting luxurious presents by way of an middleman from a Unification Church official who allegedly sought numerous enterprise favors, together with the church’s participation in a Cambodian improvement mission. The official, who has been arrested, can also be suspected of offering 100 million gained ($71,800) in bribes to Kweon.
Han was questioned for almost 10 hours on Wednesday final week and denied the allegations towards her in temporary feedback to reporters. She and her church have insisted that the arrested church official, Yoon Young-ho, overstepped his authority and acted on his personal.
Han is the highest leader of the church, formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which her husband based in 1954.
A self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative household values, Moon constructed the Unification Church into a world motion with thousands and thousands of followers and intensive enterprise pursuits. The church is extensively recognized for mass weddings, pairing hundreds of {couples} who usually are from totally different nations.