Facing charges: Hak being wheeled into the Seoul Central District Court in this file photo. — AP
South Korean investigators indicted the 82-year-old leader of the Unification Church, Hak Ja-han, over allegations that she instructed church officials to bribe the wife of jailed former president Yoon Suk-yeol and a conservative lawmaker close to him.
Hak, widow of the church’s founder Sun Myung-moon, has denied the allegations, and the church condemned her arrest last month as a disrespectful act against an “internationally respected religious leader”.
The church’s alleged ties to former first lady Kim Keon-hee, who was arrested and charged in August over bribery and other suspected crimes, have become a central focus of ongoing special investigations into Yoon’s presidency.
Yoon, an outspoken conservative, was formally removed from office in April over a short-lived martial law decree in December that triggered his impeachment.
An investigative team led by special prosecutor Min Joong-ki, which probes corruption allegations surrounding Kim, said yesterday it indicted Hak and her former chief secretary on charges of bribery, violating political funding laws, embezzling church funds and instructing the destruction of evidence.
Investigators, who have continued questioning Hak while she remains in custody, claim that she and her former secretary conspired with another church official to give luxury goods to Kim on two occasions in July 2022 in an attempt to seek business favours.
Hak is also suspected of instructing the church official, who has also been arrested, to deliver 100 million won (RM297,266) in bribes to conservative lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong in January 2022, months before Yoon was elected president that March.
Investigators allege the church offered to help Yoon’s presidential campaign by mobilising followers and using its organisational network in exchange for future government support for its policies and events it hoped Yoon would attend.
Kweon, a staunch Yoon loyalist arrested last month and indicted this week for violating political funding laws, has denied receiving the church’s money.
Hak and her former secretary are also suspected of instructing the arrested church official, Yoon Young-ho, to destroy evidence. — AP
