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.
Also See: South Koreans shocked by former president’s suicide
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat