Moon Jae-in joins a growing list of former presidents who have found themselves in legal trouble during or after their tenure.
Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in was indicted on bribery charges on April 24.
The move by prosecutors makes him the latest in a growing list of former leaders of the East Asian nation to find themselves in legal hot water.
This case is linked to the appointment of his then-son-in-law to a lucrative no-show job at a budget Thai airline during his term of office.
The 72-year-old was indicted in the same case in which a former lawmaker named Lee Sang-jik was also charged with bribery and breach of trust, the Jeonju District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
Prosecutors had been investigating whether Lee’s appointment as head of the SMEs and Startups Agency was in exchange for Moon’s then-son-in-law getting a job and receiving a salary plus living expenses at Thai Eastar Jet between 2018 and 2020, according to the statement.
The prosecution alleges that the money his then-son-in-law received as an executive director, 5.95 million Thai baht (about $178,000), was irregular and constituted a bribe to Moon, who was then the president.
Prosecutors said the son-in-law spent only brief periods of time at the company’s office in Thailand and performed minor duties during a period when he claimed to be working remotely from South Korea.
The prosecutors’ office stated that it had not found evidence that Moon directly performed political favors for Lee but stated that Lee, who worked on Moon’s campaign, likely expected his assistance to be repaid.
Moon’s daughter and her husband are now divorced, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
Prosecutors cited previous bribery cases involving former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, both of whom were convicted and jailed, as legal precedent.
Moon, Lee, and their legal representatives have yet to comment, but Moon’s allies in the main liberal opposition Democratic Party criticized the indictment, calling it a politically motivated attempt by supporters of his successor, Yoon Suk Yeol, at the prosecution service to humiliate the former liberal leader ahead of the upcoming snap election.
South Koreans are heading to the polls in June after Yoon was ousted over attempting to impose martial law in December 2024.
The former top prosecutor now stands accused of rebellion and insurrection, charges he denies.
A Democratic Party committee separately warned that it would hold the prosecutor’s office to account for its indictment.
The liberal-leaning Lee Jae-myung from Moon’s Democratic Party is the current frontrunner in opinion polls, and his campaign characterized the indictment as political retribution by the prosecution and a clampdown on the previous administration.
Youn Kun-young, a lawmaker and a close aide to Moon, accused the prosecution in a Facebook post of setting Moon up through “ridiculous and groundless charges” without a proper investigation.
The liberal Moon, a lawyer and civil rights activist, was president between 2017 and 2022.
He is known for his push to reconcile with North Korea, meeting with Kim Jong Un three times and facilitating the start of diplomacy between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump during Trump’s first term in the White House.
Moon’s supporters credit him with achieving the now-stalled cooperation with North Korea and avoiding major armed clashes with the regime in Pyongyang.
However, his opponents accused him of being a naive North Korean sympathizer who ended up helping Kim buy time to advance his nuclear program in the face of international sanctions.
Over the past two decades, a string of South Korean leaders have faced trials or scandals, for the most part toward the end of their terms or after leaving office.
In 2017, Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female president, was ousted and arrested over a corruption scandal. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years in prison before she received a presidential pardon from Moon.
Park’s conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was also arrested for a range of crimes, years after leaving office, while Moon’s friend, former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, jumped to his death in 2009 amid a corruption investigation.