Chung Yoo-ra Denies Any Wrong Doing In Interview to Korean Media

I am still waiting to see what evidence the ROK authorities have on Chung Yoo-ra to implicate her for corruption at Ewha Women’s University much less the ROK Presidential corruption scandal.  According to this interview she gave she wanted to drop out of the Ewha and her mom would not let her:

Chung Yoo-ra, daughter of Choi Soon-sil, told reporters in Denmark that she has nothing to do with the corruption charges against her and that any controversy involving her was the result of her mother’s scheming.“All I did was sign certain documents, whose contents were covered up by Post-its,” Chung told a group of Korean reporters during a break in a detention hearing at a local court in Aalborg, a northern city of Denmark, on Monday. “I don’t know a thing about what’s been going on in my mother’s business, as it was run by her and her aides.”Chung, 21, is accused of receiving unjust admission to and preferential treatment at Ewha Womans University. She is central to a probe into a corruption scandal involving the Korea Equestrian Federation and Samsung Electronics. Samsung pledged 22 billion won ($18.3 million) for Chung’s equestrian training. It was also the largest benefactor of two nonprofit foundations that Choi practically controlled, contributing 20.4 billion won.

“I thought I was going to be expelled [from Ewha Womans University],” Chung said. “But my mother and I met with then-President Choi Kyung-hee and professor Ryu Chul-kyun. I left the meeting before my mother did and then I found out later that I got the academic credits.

“I even told my mother that I wanted to drop out,” she added, “but it didn’t work out.”

Chung also denied knowledge of how Samsung came to finance her training.

“My mother told me that Samsung decided to sponsor six equestrian athletes,” Chung said. “I was just one of the six who were sponsored.

“I don’t know how much funding I received or from where,” she added. “Only my mother and my training coach would know.”

Chung denied having close ties with President Park Geun-hye.

“The last time I met her was when my father was still working [for Park],” she said. Chung Yoon-hoi, ex-husband to Choi, was chief of staff to Park from 1998 to 2004. “I think I was an elementary school student then.”

She also denied knowledge of what the president may have done during a mysterious seven-hour absence on the day of the Sewol ferry’s sinking in 2014, in which 304 passengers died after a delayed government response.

“I was pregnant at the time, and my mother and I had fallen out because of it,” she said. “I was living in Sillim-dong and my mother in Gangnam District [of southern Seoul], and we had no contact. So I have no knowledge of what might have happened in the government at the time.”

Chung was arrested by authorities in Denmark’s northern city of Aalborg on Sunday on the charge of illegally staying in the country. She was arrested with four other people, including her 19-month-old son.

The court in Aalborg on Monday extended Chung’s detention to Jan. 30, even after she told it, “There is no one to look after my 19-month-old son if I am detained.” Chung’s lawyer in Denmark is reportedly planning to file an appeal. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

It seems like ROK authorities can very easily have Chung return to Korea whenever they want if they allow her to have some kind of home detention with her baby:

Chung said after her arrest that she will not try to avoid extradition to Korea and will cooperate with an independent counsel’s probe of the allegations surrounding her and her mother – as long as she can be investigated without being detained.

Chung told the reporters in Aalborg that she would return to Korea in a heartbeat as long as she can stay with her son.

“It doesn’t matter if the child needs to stay at a nursery [when I’m being investigated], or with a social welfare group, or at a hospital,” she said. “I just miss my baby.”

If Chung returns to Korea, she will be separated from her son after she is arrested.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.