Missing Seoul mayor’s body found

Local police said the body of the missing mayor of the capital of South Korea, Seoul, had been identified.

Mayor Park Won-soon’s body was found early Friday in the northern Seoul hills, more than seven hours after the city authorities started a major search for him.

His daughter called the police on Thursday afternoon and said her father had sent her a “will-like” verbal warning before leaving their home hours earlier. She said she had decided to contact the authorities because she couldn’t reach her father on the phone.

Police officer Lee Byeong-seok told reporters that Park had been last detected by a surveillance camera at 10:53 a.m. At the entrance to the wooded hills that stretch across northern Seoul, more than six hours before his daughter called the police to report him missing. His mobile signal was last observed in the area until the phone was ultimately turned off.

Approximately 600 police and drone fire officers hunted Thursday night for hours. Fire Officer Jeong Jin-hyang said the rescuers used dogs to search risky areas on the slopes, and the helicopters were to be dispatched Friday morning in the event that Park had not been identified overnight.

Kim Ji-hyeong, an official of the Metropolitan Government of Seoul, said Park had not come to work on Thursday for specific reasons and had canceled his schedule, including a meeting with a presidential officer in his office in Seoul City Hall.

Circumstances concerning his disappearance and his death remain unknown.

The Seoul-based SBS television network announced that one of Park’s secretaries had filed a complaint with the police on Wednesday night over suspected sexual assault, such as inappropriate physical contact, which started in 2017.

The SBS report, which did not cite any source, said the secretary told police investigators that an unspecified number of other female workers in Seoul City Hall had been exposed to similar sexual abuse by Park. The MBC television broadcast a similar report.

Both the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and the Park Office said they could not confirm the reports.

Park, 64, a long-time civil activist and human rights lawyer, was elected Mayor of Seoul in 2011. He became the first mayor of the city to vote for a third term in June last year. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party of President Moon Jae-in, he was considered a potential presidential candidate in the 2022 elections.

As a lawyer, he was credited with winning the country’s first conviction of sexual harassment. He was also an outspoken critic of Japan’s colonial-era policies toward Korea, including the mobilization of Korean and other women as sex slaves to Japanese soldiers.

Park has established himself as a ruthless foe of former Conservative President Park Geun-hye, and publicly supported the millions of protesters who crowded the city streets in late 2016 and 2017, calling for an eruption of a corruption crisis.

Seoul, a city of 10 million citizens, has been the new focus of the coronavirus epidemic in South Korea after the nation relaxed its strict social isolation laws in early May. The Mayor launched an ambitious anti-virus drive, closing down thousands of nightspots and banning demonstrations on main downtown streets.