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AFP
Seoul
Seoul’s outspoken mayor Park Won-soon, long seen as a potential South Korean presidential candidate, was found dead, police said Friday. He was 64.
A former Seoul City employee filed a police complaint -- allegedly involving sexual harassment -- against him on Wednesday.
Park’s body was found on a mountain in northern Seoul, police said, hours after hundreds of officers started searching for him.
If Park does prove to have killed himself he would be the highest-profile South Korean politician to do so since former president Roh Moo-hyun, who jumped off a cliff in 2009 after being questioned over corruption allegations involving family members.
Park’s daughter reported him missing on Thursday afternoon, saying her father had been unreachable for several hours, police said.
He left a message that sounded like “last words” and his phone had been turned off, she told police.
Bespectacled and soft-featured, Park was considered a political novice when he first entered the Seoul mayoral race as an independent candidate in 2011 but he defeated Na Kyung-won, the most prominent female lawmaker for the then ruling conservative party.
Earlier this week he courted controversy by being one of several senior Democratic party politicians to attend the funeral of the mother of Ahn Hee-jung, a former provincial governor convicted of sexual offences last year.
Seoul
Seoul’s outspoken mayor Park Won-soon, long seen as a potential South Korean presidential candidate, was found dead, police said Friday. He was 64.
A former Seoul City employee filed a police complaint -- allegedly involving sexual harassment -- against him on Wednesday.
Park’s body was found on a mountain in northern Seoul, police said, hours after hundreds of officers started searching for him.
If Park does prove to have killed himself he would be the highest-profile South Korean politician to do so since former president Roh Moo-hyun, who jumped off a cliff in 2009 after being questioned over corruption allegations involving family members.
Park’s daughter reported him missing on Thursday afternoon, saying her father had been unreachable for several hours, police said.
He left a message that sounded like “last words” and his phone had been turned off, she told police.
Bespectacled and soft-featured, Park was considered a political novice when he first entered the Seoul mayoral race as an independent candidate in 2011 but he defeated Na Kyung-won, the most prominent female lawmaker for the then ruling conservative party.
Earlier this week he courted controversy by being one of several senior Democratic party politicians to attend the funeral of the mother of Ahn Hee-jung, a former provincial governor convicted of sexual offences last year.
