Former President Moon Jae-in Indicted in South Korea

Moon Jae-in, previously leading South Korea, is the most recent ex-president to be charged with corruption, intensifying political divisions within the nation.

Reported from Seoul

On Thursday, Moon Jae-in, who concluded his term as South Korea's president in 2022, was formally accused of bribery. This charge is connected to the hiring matters involving his ex-son-in-law at a now-closed budget airline based in Thailand, as disclosed by prosecutors.

The son-in-law, then married to Moon’s daughter, Da-hye, reportedly earned a compensation package worth 217 million won, approximately equal to $150,000, from 2018 to 2020. He received salary and housing perks from the airline, cited by the Jeonju district prosecutor's office.

According to Jeonju prosecutors, this sum was treated as a bribe from Lee Sang-jik, a Korean entrepreneur and former MP, directed towards Moon. Mr. Lee supposedly positioned the son-in-law as an executive at the airline, favoring Moon’s family, despite the individual's lack of qualifications.

Lee had once been appointed by Moon as head of a governmental body tasked with enhancing small enterprises and was later elected as a parliamentarian under Moon’s Democratic Party ticket in 2020. He was stripped of his position after becoming entangled in allegations of embezzlement and breaches of election laws.

Prosecutors claimed that Moon used his influence on the presidential staff to facilitate his son-in-law's overseas employment move from South Korea to Thailand.