SEOUL, South Korea — The leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification is facing arrest in South Korea amid an ever-expanding bribery probe into persons and organizations linked to imprisoned ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol.
On Thursday, prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for Dr. Hak Ja Han, 82, the widow of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, now known as the Family Federation for World Peace Unification.
Ms. Han, the federation’s leader, was questioned by prosecutors on Wednesday. On Monday, a court will hold hearings on the detention request, which is based on prosecution concerns about the potential destruction of evidence.
Rev. Demian Dunkley, president of Family Federation USA, was incensed by the investigation’s reliance on the testimony of a former federation official who was subsequently expelled. “How can Korea, a democratic nation, base its accusation on such tainted testimony?” he asked. “This is not a neutral investigation; it is a persecution.”
According to Yonhap News Agency, Ms. Han and one of her assistants face accusations of embezzlement, suborning the destruction of evidence and violating anti-graft laws and the Political Funds Act.
The prosecutors suspect Ms. Han colluded with a former federation official to hand $72,400 to PPP National Assemblyman Kweon Seong-dong.
Further suspicions surround the federation’s alleged gifting of luxury goods to Mr. Yoon’s wife.
Prior to the recent allegations, Ms. Kim’s alleged receipt of a Dior handbag from a different political lobbyist generated a national brouhaha that haunted Mr. Yoon’s term in office.
Prosecutors contend the federation’s various alleged gifts were designed to win political favors, including an invitation to Mr. Yoon’s presidential inauguration, official support for federation initiatives in Cambodia and for its acquisition of Korean news channel YTN.
The federation did not win support for its Cambodia projects, nor did it succeed in acquiring YTN.
The South Korean government’s pursuit of a conservative religious leader has raised concerns around the world, including in Washington.
Ms. Han “works for peace and religious freedom,” former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingricd wrote on X. “She has been in hospital with a serious heart condition and the persecutors of the leftwing government want to interrogate her at the risk of killing her,” wrote Mr. Gingrich, who has attended Ms. Han’s federation conferences in Korea. “It is inhumane and should be stopped immediately.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has joined hundreds of religious leaders globally in expressing concerns about the erosion of political and religious liberty under the new leftist South Korean government.
As part of its investigation, the new government has demanded the names of church members and the membership rolls of the opposition conservative party.
Investigators on Thursday raided the company that manages the PPP member roster databases. Allegations are that large numbers of federation members enrolled in the PPP to ensure Mr. Kweon won the party leadership contest.
Prosecutors, backed by a massive police presence, raided the federation’s organizational and religious compound in the countryside outside Seoul in July.
Ms. Han did not attend three prior investigative hearings due to ill health related to a recent heart procedure. An ambulance was reportedly standing by during her questioning on Wednesday.
The federation is a global religious organization that also runs a number of businesses, including The Washington Times.
Lawfare on all fronts
Prosecution suspicions center on allegations that Ms. Han’s federation allegedly attempted to curry favor with Mr. Yoon, his wife and an influential member of his conservative People Power Party are convoluted.
Mr. Yoon sought to impose martial law in December 2024. His motives are believed to be to overcome majority opposition obstructionism in the National Assembly, and to investigate beliefs that the National Election Commission had been corrupted.
It backfired. Mr. Yoon was impeached and Lee Jae-myung, of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea won the subsequent presidential election in June. That left Mr. Yoon’s PPP disempowered in both the executive and the legislative branches.
Imprisoned and on trial for insurrection, Mr. Yoon is at the mercy of prosecutors. Ms. Kim is also in detention, facing corruption probes. So too is Mr. Kweon.
The potential arrest of the federation’s head plunges it further into crisis.
In neighboring Japan, Ms. Han’s federation is facing imminent dissolution in a case that is testing the limits of religious freedom in the island nation.
Tokyo accuses the federation of coercing believers into making financial donations to the church and buying expensive religious trinkets.
Its Japanese adherents say that they have broken no laws, that the alleged malfeasances took place years or decades ago, and that a number of prosecutorial affidavits are false and have been withdrawn by signatories.
The federation, founded in South Korea in 1954 by the late Rev. Moon, has long been controversial, given such traditions as mass weddings. But politics is also in play — hence alleged connections to Mr. Yoon.
The federation has made no secret of its support for conservative, family values and its opposition to communism.
Even so, as a religious organization that actively promotes communication between religions, it has also forged relations with North Korea.
In Japan, its supporters have assisted the conservative Liberal Democratic Party in electioneering. In 2022, a suspect aggrieved at his mother’s financial donations to the church murdered former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Though the killer was imprisoned, the LDP aggressively slashed ties with the federation.
In Korea, Ms. Han — who inherited the religion’s leadership from her late husband — has been snagged in an expanding net of investigations into persons and organizations related to Mr. Yoon.
Those include churches, including one that mobilized masses of supporters in street rallies during the impeachment crisis.
One expert said what is underway is the latest episode in a long tradition of South Korean leaders exacting political vengeance on opponents.
“It is a feature of what unfortunately happens with every single new administration in South Korea,” said Michael Breen, Seoul-based author of “The New Koreans.” “In the name of anti-corruption, incoming administrations conduct something ranging from a witch hunt to political revenge to house cleaning of the previous administration.”
The current legal-political imbroglio is particularly intense given Mr. Yoon’s declaration of martial law. That step is especially emotive in South Korea, which has living memory of the practice: It endured the harsh rule of military regimes from 1961 until the achievement of full democratization in 1987.
“I don’t think the Unification Church is being singled out, I don’t think that the treatment that Ms. Han and top leaders are getting is any different than what happens to political leaders,” said Mr. Breen, who has also written a biography of the late Rev. Moon.
He warned that Ms. Han is in a perilous position.
“Prosecutors here are very powerful and get their evidence from interrogations, rather than from forensic evidence and so on,” he said. “The system is such that prosecutors invariably win their case.”
