Mayor Found Dead Hours After Being Accused Of Sexual Harassment

Park Won-soon, Mayor of Seoul, has been found dead hours after he was accused of sexual harassment, police said on Friday.
Won-soon’s body was found at Mount Bugak in northern Seoul, after hundreds of officers started searching for him.
The 64-year-old was found near where his phone signal was last detected.
But no cause of death has yet been released.
He was perceived as a potential South Korean presidential candidate.
His death comes after former Seoul city employee filed a police complaint involving sexual harassment against him on Wednesday.
If it is established that Park killed himself because of the allegation, he would be the highest-profile South Korean politician to do so, since former president, Roh Moo-hyun, jumped off a cliff in 2009, after being questioned over corruption allegations involving family members.
Won-soon’s daughter reported that he was missing on Thursday afternoon.
She had complained that her father had been unreachable for several hours, police also said.
He left a message that sounded like “last words”, and his phone had been turned off, she told the police.
It was said that he did not show up for work on Thursday, and cancelled a meeting with a presidential official at his Seoul City Hall office, Kim Ji-hyeong, an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, told the Associated Press.
Police officer, Lee Byeong-seok, told reporters that Won-soon was seen by a security camera at 10.53 near the entrance to the wooded area, where his phone signal was last detected.
The politician earned a reputation as a workaholic boss, with reports saying a handful of civil servants at the Seoul city government had committed suicide due to work-related stress under him.
Earlier this week, he attracted controversy by being one of several senior Democratic party politicians to attend the funeral of the mother of Ahn Hee-jung, a former provincial governor, convicted of sexual offences last year.