S. Korean ex-president jailed over corruption allegations

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s disgraced former President Park Geun-hye was arrested and jailed Friday over high-profile corruption allegations that already ended her four-year rule and prompted an election to find her successor.

A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Park, entered a detention facility near Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutors’ request to arrest her. Many Park supporters waved national flags and shouted “president” as Park’s car entered the facility.

Prosecutors can detain her for up to 20 days before formally charging her, meaning she will likely be in jail while her case is heard. A district court normally issues a ruling within six months of an indictment.

The Seoul court’s decision is yet another humiliating fall for Park, South Korea’s first female president who was elected in 2012 amid a wave of conservative nostalgia for her late dictator father, whose 18-year rule is marked by both rapid economic rise and enormous human rights abuses.

Prosecutors accuse Park of colluding with a confidante to extort big businesses, take a bribe from one of the companies and commit other wrongdoing. The allegations led millions of South Koreans to protest in the streets every weekend for months before lawmakers impeached her in December and the Constitutional Court ruled in March to formally remove her from office.

It made Park the country’s first democratically elected leader to be forced from office since democracy came here in the late 1980s. South Korea will hold an election in May to choose Park’s successor. Opinion surveys say liberal opposition leader Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 election to Park, is the favorite.

Prosecutors can charge Park without arresting her. But they said they wanted to arrest her because the allegations against her are “grave” and because other suspects involved the scandal, including her confidante Choi Soo-sil, have already been arrested.