Former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, who was at the center of a multimillion-dollar corruption probe, plunged to his death off a mountainside yesterday in an apparent suicide.
Police said they were investigating whether Roh, who held office from 2003 through last year, killed himself. A former aide said the ex-leader jumped off a cliff after leaving a suicide note.
Roh, 62, had left home around dawn with a bodyguard and climbed a mountain near his retirement village of Bongha close to the southeast coast.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“He jumped off a rock on the mountain at 6:40am,” former chief presidential secretary Moon Jae-in told journalists. “He left a short suicide note addressed to his family members.”
Police in Gyeongsangnam province confirmed a suicide note was found on Roh's computer at his home. A hospital in the southern city of Busan said he was pronounced dead from massive head injuries at 9:30am.
“It has been so tough,” local media quoted the suicide note as saying. “I caused so much trouble to many people.
“Please cremate my body. Please erect a small tombstone for me at the village,” the note said.
A shocked South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak described the death as a national tragedy.
“It is truly hard to believe what happened. It is a sad, tragic incident,” he was quoted by his spokesman as saying.
Roh, a former human rights lawyer, was credited with working to make his nation more democratic and less authoritarian.
He also doggedly pursued reconciliation with communist North Korea despite its 2006 nuclear and missile tests, holding a landmark summit with leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in 2007.
Critics said the South gave the North too much for too little in return. A relatively sluggish economic performance, high youth unemployment and soaring property prices also undermined Roh's popularity.
And Roh's reputation as a clean leader was tarnished when he was questioned by prosecutors last month as a suspect in the corruption probe — the third former leader to be quizzed on graft charges after leaving office.
The investigation centered around a payment of US$1 million to Roh's wife from a wealthy shoe manufacturer, and a payment by the same man of US$5 million to the husband of one of Roh's nieces.
Prosecutors had said they were considering issuing an arrest warrant.
Roh had apologized for his family's involvement in the case but had not admitted personal wrongdoing.
“I feel ashamed before my fellow citizens,” he said at the time. “I am sorry to have disappointed you.”
Kim Dae-jung, Roh's predecessor as president, expressed “great shock and sorrow,” an aide said.
“I've lost my life-long companion, with whom I took part in struggles for democracy and shared 10 years of a democratic government,” Kim said.
“Allegations concerning his family members have been leaked to the press every day,” Kim said. “He was probably unable to bear the pressure and tensions any longer.”
Roh's body was taken in convoy to his retirement village where aides said the funeral would be held. Uniformed police lined the route out of the hospital.
Hundreds of Roh's supporters and lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party, who gathered at the village, denounced prosecutors for what they called an “unreasonable and indiscriminate” investigation into the Roh family, Yonhap news agency reported.
They also expressed anger at media organizations for what they termed biased reporting.
Some 800 supporters gathered at an altar outside Deoksu palace in central Seoul. Mourners, some sobbing, laid flowers before a large photo and burnt incense.
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