May 30, 2017 11:19
The daughter of ex-President Park Geun-hye's crony Choi Soon-sil, who is thought to have been a major beneficiary of her mother's slush funds, will be extradited to Korea on Wednesday. Prosecutors will take her into custody on arrival.
Chung has been in detention in Aalborg, Denmark since her arrest there in early January.
The Justice Ministry here on Monday said Chung will take off from Copenhagen on Tuesday afternoon and arrive at Incheon International Airport on Wednesday. The ministry sent five officials to Denmark on Monday to accompany her.
Chung has appealed decisions by Danish prosecutors and courts to extradite her but dropped her last attempts on May 24. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office will begin questioning her immediately.
On Dec. 21 last year, independent counsel Park Young-soo took out a warrant for her arrest on charges of wangling favors from Ewha Womans University based on her mother's ties to Park.
Prosecutors are also considering charging her with bribery since she was an immediate beneficiary of billions her mother and Park allegedly extracted from Samsung. They are investigating whether Chung personally violated foreign exchange controls and anti-money laundering regulations by buying homes in Germany, where she had been hiding.
In December last year, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told the National Assembly that German authorities have indicted Chung for violating anti-money laundering regulations.
Noh Seung-il, one of the drinking buddies Choi installed in the dubious nonprofits she set up to amass her slush funds, has described Chung Yoo-ra as "a rugby ball that can bounce anywhere" and said she could turn into a key witness for the prosecution.
He said Chung at one point in 2014 threatened to spill the beans on her parents to the press because they were spending too much time with Park rather than her.
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