Park Hospitalized for Shoulder Surgery

Ex-President Park Geun-hye is being taken from jail to hospital on Monday for shoulder surgery.

Park was jailed in 2017 for abuse of power, bribery, coercion and leaking government secrets. She remains in remand jail while various appeals are pending and has been complaining of back pain.

The Justice Ministry in a statement last Wednesday said it decided to let Park out of jail for surgery after Chuseok according to the doctor's advice. The decision came just two days after prosecutors refused to suspend her sentence saying that her ailment "was not serious enough to prevent her from serving time in jail."

The ministry added, "It is up to prosecutors to decide whether to suspend her sentence, but irrespective of that we made the decision to allow Park to be hospitalized for surgery and treatment."

The decision has generated a certain amount of political noise, partly from Park's die-hard supporters who feel the most corrupt president in recent memory should be freed entirely on "humanitarian grounds," while conservatives who broke with the core of her old party sense a fiendish ploy to divide the opposition.

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