The widow and successor of the Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon was arrested on Tuesday on charges of providing illegal political funds and bribing the wife of Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached and ousted as president of South Korea.
Han Hak-ja, 82, was being held in a jail south of Seoul after a court in the capital city issued a warrant for her arrest early Tuesday. The court expressed concern that if she remained free she could try to destroy criminal evidence against her.
Ms. Han, known as “True Mother” among her followers in South Korea and abroad, has been leading the Unification Church since the Rev. Moon died in 2012 at age 92. She and her church have not drawn much public attention in South Korea, a country with no shortage of politically influential or scandalous religious leaders.
But Ms. Han and the Unification Church suddenly made headlines this year in connection with criminal investigations targeting Mr. Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee.
Mr. Yoon plunged South Korea into months of political turmoil when he declared martial law last December as a move against his domestic enemies. He was expelled from office in April after his impeachment by the opposition-controlled National Assembly and is now on trial on insurrection charges.
Last month, Ms. Kim was arrested on charges, including accepting bribes. She is accused of accepting a diamond necklace and two Chanel bags from a senior official of the Unification Church after Mr. Yoon’s election in 2022. The official, who has since left the church, was also arrested, as was a self-proclaimed religious guru accused of working as an intermediary between him and Ms. Kim.
The office of the special counsel investigating Ms. Kim interrogated Ms. Han last week for her alleged role in the same case. It later asked a Seoul court for a warrant to arrest her.
It said that Ms. Han embezzled money from her church and used it to bribe Ms. Kim to buy political favors for her church’s business interests. Ms. Han was also accused of providing the conservative lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong, a staunch ally of Mr. Yoon, with $72,000 in illegal political funds before Mr. Yoon’s election in 2022. Mr. Kweon was arrested last week.
Ms. Han has denied all charges against her. “Why would I do that?” she told reporters last week as she emerged after nine hours of questioning by prosecutors.
Her church said that any money transferred from Ms. Han to Mr. Kweon should be seen as a gift that Koreans exchange during New Year’s. It also said that Ms. Han had nothing to do with whatever may have taken place between Ms. Kim and the former church official.
Ms. Han’s husband, the Rev. Moon, was an enormously successful evangelist and self-proclaimed messiah who was born in present day North Korea and started his church in 1954.
He built his church, officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, into an international movement with followers in South Korea, Japan, the United States and elsewhere. The church controls extensive real-estate and business holdings, such as construction and beverage companies, ski resorts, newspapers and schools. It is also known for mass weddings, pairing thousands of people who were often from different countries and matched by the church.
In March, a court in Tokyo ordered the church’s Japanese branch to disband. The assassination of the former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, by a man with a grudge against the church led to revelations that the group pressured members to fund its donations to conservative politicians, pushing those followers into financial hardship.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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