8 February 2017
Cho Yoon-Sun, 50, former culture minister and Kim Ki-choon, top aide to President Park Geun Hye, were indicted by national prosecutors on charges of abuse of power, coercion and perjury for their role in creating a blacklist of 10,000 dissenting artists, a spokesman said. The list was to deprive those artists from any government funding programmes. The arrests of Cho and Kim were approved by the Seoul Central District Court. Prosecutors named Park Geun-Hye, also as an accomplice in the creation of the list, although she says she was not aware of its existence.
In a setback to prosecutors’ investigation a Seoul court disapproved the arrest of Lee Jae-yong, the de-facto leader of Samsung Group which donated the largest portion of the money to two non-profit foundations controlled by Choi Soon-Sil, a close friend of the President.