Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon went missing on Thursday before they found his body on a mountain. Police found a suicide note:
“I send my apologies to everyone. I thank everyone who shared my life. I am so sorry to my family to whom I only gave pain,” read the apparent suicide note left on the desk of his official residence and released by the city government with the permission of his family.“Bye everyone.”
Park left behind a wife, son, and daughter. Park became well known and rumors swirled he might have run for president in 2020.
Park once worked as “an activist, women’s rights advocate, and a lawyer.” NBC News continued:
As a lawyer in the 1990s, Park won one of South Korea’s earliest cases on sexual harassment. During his career, Park also strongly advocated for the cause of “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels during World War II.In addition, Park was an outspoken advocate of gender equality. Amid the #MeToo movement in 2018, he had praised South Korean women for their courage after a series of women accused powerful politicians of sexual wrongdoings.
One of Park’s secretaries filed a complaint with the police on Wednesday night, alleging he sexually harassed her since 2017:
A programme on the previously unreported accusation was due to be aired on Thursday.A document purporting to be the statement from Won-soon’s victim, who worked as his personal secretary from 2015, alleged he committed ‘sexual harassment and inappropriate gestures during work hours’.The claims include insisting she hug him in the bedroom adjoining his office.After work, she said, he sent her ‘selfies of himself in his underwear and lewd comments’ on a messenger app.’I brainwashed myself, bearing tremendous fear and humiliation, that all of this was in the interest of Seoul City, myself, and mayor Park,’ she claimed in the document.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY