Image copyright EPA Image caption Ms Park has been taken to a detention house in Seoul

Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been arrested and taken into custody over a corruption scandal that led to her dismissal.

The 65-year-old was driven to a detention centre south of Seoul after a court approved her arrest.

She is accused of allowing her close friend Choi Soon-sil to extort money from companies, including Samsung, in return for political favours.

Ms Park, who was removed from office earlier this month, denies the claims.

She is the third former president of South Korea to be arrested over criminal allegations, Yonhap reports.

The Seoul Central District Court earlier issued a warrant to detain Ms Park while she is investigated on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and leaking government secrets.

It followed a nearly nine-hour court hearing on Thursday that Ms Park attended.

"It is justifiable and necessary to arrest [Ms Park] as key charges were justified and there is risk of evidence being destroyed," the court said in a statement.

Live television footage showed a black sedan carrying her to the detention facility from the prosecutor's office where she had been waiting.

Despite the early hour, some 50 supporters, waving national flags and demanding her release, were at the gate to greet her, the AFP news agency reports.

Ms Park can be held for up to 20 days before being formally charged.

If convicted she could face more than 10 years in prison.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Supporters of Ms Park gathered around her home as she testified in court

Ms Park lost her presidential immunity and was dismissed from her post when the constitutional court upheld a decision by parliament in December to impeach her.

Ms Choi is accused of using her presidential connections to pressure companies to give millions of dollars in donations to non-profit foundations she controlled.

Ms Park is alleged to have been personally involved in this, and to have given Ms Choi unacceptable levels of access to official documents.

Judges had said the former president had broken the law by allowing Ms Choi to meddle in state affairs, and had breached guidelines on official secrets by leaking numerous documents.

Ms Choi and Samsung's acting head Lee Jae-yong, also involved in the scandal, are being held in the same detention centre to where Ms Park has been sent. They are also being tried separately.

Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is loyal to Ms Park, is now the acting president and an election is to be held by 9 May.</s>SEOUL: South Korea's ousted President Park Geun-hye was arrested on Friday (Mar 31) over the corruption and abuse of power scandal that brought her down, a court spokesman said.

The Seoul Central District Court issued a warrant to arrest Park on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets, after a marathon court hearing the previous day.</s>SEOUL: A South Korean court said on Friday it had approved a warrant to arrest ousted president Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in March over allegations of bribery.

Park can be held in a cell for up to 20 days while she is investigated on charges including bribery and abuse of presidential power.</s>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court approves the arrest of ex-President Park Geun-hye over corruption allegations .</s>The Latest on legal problems of South Korea’s disgraced ex-President Park Geun-hye (all times local):

A liberal politician opinion polls show as the favorite to become South Korea’s next president says the arrest of Park Geun-hye took the country a step toward restoring “justice and common sense.”

The camp of Moon Jae-in said in a statement Friday that the nation should now “turn the page on painful history” and focus on creating a fair and clean country.

His Democratic Party, the largest in parliament, drove the efforts to impeach Park in December. Her arrest came three week after the Constitutional Court formally stripped her of office. Moon lost the 2012 presidential race to Park.

Park’s conservative party described her arrest as “pitiful.”

“We wish that the sad history of a former president getting arrested never repeats in the Republic of Korea,” the Liberty Korea Party said in a statement, using South Korea’s formal name.

South Korea’s disgraced former president has arrived at a detention center after a Seoul court approved her arrest over corruption allegations.

Live TV footage shows a black sedan carrying Park Geun-hye entering the detention center near Seoul early Friday. Earlier in the day, the Seoul Central District Court approved prosecutors’ request to arrest her, citing worries that she may try to destroy evidence.

Many Park supporters were seen carrying national flags and shouting “president” when Park’s car was entering the detention facility.

Live TV footage shows a black sedan carrying disgraced former South Korean President Park Geun-hye leaving a prosecutors’ office after a Seoul court approved her arrest.

The YTN television network says her car is heading to a detention facility near Seoul. It says Park will be detained.

The Seoul Central District Court on Friday approved prosecutors’ request to arrest Park, citing worries that she may try to destroy evidence.

Park was questioned for nearly nine hours by the court Thursday before its decision to grant her arrest warrant.

A South Korean court says it has approved the arrest of ex-President Park Geun-hye over corruption allegations.

Friday’s ruling by the Seoul Central District Court means that prosecutors can immediately put Park in a detention facility. Prosecutors can detain her for up to 20 days before formally charging her.

Prosecutors have been pushing to arrest her over allegations that she colluded with a confidante to extort money from businesses and committed other wrongdoing.

The Constitutional Court ruled to dismiss Park over the allegations earlier in March, three months after Parliament impeached her.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now</s>Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-Hye was arrested in the early hours of Friday, on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets. After a long hearing on Thursday, a court had said, “It is justifiable and necessary to arrest (Park) as key charges were justified and there is risk of evidence being destroyed.”

She was taken to a detention centre near Seoul, AFP reported.

A spokesperson for the Democratic Party’s leading presidential contender Moon Jae-in praised the arrest, calling it the first step to rebuilding a collapsed nation, The Korean Herald reported. Park’s own party, the Liberty Korea Party, however, said her arrest was “truly regrettable”. In a statement, they hoped that such a “painful history” won’t repeat itself.

Park is the first democratically elected leader to be ousted from office in South Korea. On December 9, the South Korean Parliament had impeached her.

The former president was accused of colluding with Choi Soon-sil, a long-time friend and confidante, to extort money in the form of donations from South Korean companies. The money, which was transferred to non-profit foundations controlled by Choi, was allegedly used for personal gains.

Park had also been accused of ordering her aides to leak official state documents to Choi, who has no official position in the South Korean government. There had been large scale protests demanding her removal as president.</s>South Korean authorities on Friday arrested former President Park Geun-hye in connection with the corruption investigation that led to her ouster, saying she abused her office and participated in a bribery scheme involving at least one of the nation’s largest companies.

The scandal-marred former leader — the daughter of an iconic former South Korean military dictator — already has been impeached, removed from office and stripped of public support. She now will lose her freedom as prosecutors seek a formal indictment in the next 20 days.

The decision to jail Park resulted from an eight-hour court hearing in Seoul on Thursday after which a judge determined that the evidence compiled by prosecutors in recent months warranted detention, authorities said.

The court made its decision early Friday morning local time. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that Park looked “grim-faced” as she was sent to an unidentified detention facility. Court officials had said previously that, if arrested, Park would be taken to a detention center in southern Seoul — the same jail where many others arrested in connection with the case are held pending trial.

Neither prosecutors nor her defense lawyers were immediately available for comment after the court’s decision.

On Thursday morning, Park, looking stern and dressed in a dark blue suit, had arrived at the Seoul Central District Court complex for the hearing. She entered through the same door as everyday defendants, but her arrival included an array of cameras. She offered no statement.

Last week, before being questioned at length by prosecutors, she flashed a respectful smile as she entered an adjacent building in the justice complex. “I feel apologetic toward the nation’s citizens,” she said then. “I’ll cooperate in the questioning sincerely.”

Her arrest is the latest dramatic twist in a national saga that began unfolding in October when a South Korean news report revealed that Park allowed a friend outside the government to edit her speeches. The case since has ensnared more than two dozen people.

After the report, the case quickly snowballed. In recent months, two sets of prosecutors have pursued Park during what evolved into a sprawling public corruption investigation that has gripped the nation. It has altered presidential politics here, with the potential to change the country’s relationship with its neighbors and the United States — and prompted historic street rallies not seen since the pro-democracy movement in the late 1980s.

A presidential election to replace Park is set for May 9, and political analysts say the scandal could end nearly a decade of control by the ousted president’s former ruling conservative party.

The National Assembly already had impeached Park, but she remained protected by presidential immunity until a constitutional court validated that decision on March 10, making her a civilian. Park then moved back to her home in Seoul’s trendy Gangnam district. Soon after, prosecutors made their move.

The first step was getting Park to sit for questions last week, and prosecutors said the former president denied most of the criminal allegations. Then, earlier this week, they sought to detain the former president in an effort to prevent what they worried could be the destruction of evidence — and to show that the disgraced leader would be treated just like numerous other South Koreans who’ve been swept up and jailed in the investigation.

Those charged include a close confidant at the center of the case, as well as several of her top aides and the de facto leader on the nation’s largest conglomerate, Samsung Group. Other corporate titans also have faced related scrutiny in recent weeks.

The case centers on Park’s friendship — dating back to the days of her father’s tenure in the 1960s and ’70s — with Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a deceased South Korean cult leader. Prosecutors have said that Choi, who had no government position, used her clout with Park to receive millions of dollars in payments from the nation’s top companies to firms she controlled.

They allege that Park was complicit in the scheme and that she directed aides to find official ways to reward the donors. In one case, authorities have said that Samsung’s de facto leader, Lee Jae-yong, directed funds to Choi and received presidential support for a controversial merger. He remains jailed, and the company has denied any wrongdoing.

Lee Hu Seop, a Seoul resident, was among the South Koreans who attended the candlelight vigils by the hundreds of thousands calling for Park’s ouster, week after week, since last fall. He said the criminal turn in Park’s case this week could help lead to a heightened sense of justice in the country, which has a history of collusion between government and businesses and a culture that favors elites.

“I believe that symbolically the candles beat government authority,” said Lee, 32 of the street rallies, some of which stretched more than a mile across a wide central thoroughfare in Seoul. “It was a terrible incident, but the younger generation was able to take more interest in politics. I hope that the next president rebuilds the system.”

The arrest makes Park the third former president to be jailed in connection with criminal wrongdoing since the country began allowing direct elections of presidents in the late 1980s. Another former president committed suicide in 2009 after questioning by prosecutors and scrutiny of his family.

Park is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, a former South Korean general who ran the country as a strongman dictator. He is credited with starting the country’s transition from a poor, agrarian society in the decade after the Korean War to the export-driven economic success it is today.

Park Chung-hee’s spy chief assassinated him in 1979, five years after his wife and Park Geun-hye’s mother, Yuk Young-soo, was killed in a botched attempt on his life — an event that brought Park back to South Korea from school in Europe as a young woman.

After her mother’s death, the younger Park served essentially as acting first lady and helped her father host dignitaries in the presidential complex, known as the Blue House for its distinctly colored roof. She returned there in 2013 after winning the election, only to see her presidency begin to unravel last fall — as it has for other leaders and their families over the years.

“Many Korean ex-presidents have been indicted, arrested and even convicted,” said David Kang, an international relations professor at USC who directs the university’s Korean Studies Institute. “However, it is a tragic next chapter to a tragic life.”</s>Park Geun-hye, the former president of South Korea, has been arrested. She was taken into custody early on Friday morning local time after lengthy presentations to a court by prosecutors.

Park was removed from office in December by lawmakers. A court upheld her impeachment last month, removing her presidential immunity from prosecution. She is to be charged with crimes including bribery, abuse of power and coercion. She denies the charges. The court ruled that Park represents a flight risk and said that she should be detained.

Many of the charges relate to Park’s relationship with Choi Soon-sil, a friend and close confidante who is accused of using her connections and knowledge to extort vast sums of money from businesses in Korea. Those accused of paying bribes to foundations controlled by Choi include Lee Jae-yong, the de facto boss of electronics giant. Lee is also currently under arrest and denies the charges.

Other charges against Park relate to the compiling of a blacklist of some 9,000 cultural industry figures who did not support Park’s politics. Those on the blacklist were to be denied funding from state organizations such as the Korean Film Council (KOFIC.) Park is alleged to have pressured and fired cultural industry officials who resisted the blacklist.

Former presidential aide Kim Ki-choon and former minister of culture Cho Yoon-sun have also been arrested. Both deny the charges.</s>SEOUL — Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye — who was ousted from office earlier this month — was arrested on Friday.

“Major crimes have been ascertained and there is a concern that the suspect might attempt to destroy evidence,” Judge Kang Bu-young said in a text message to reporters.

“The court recognizes the need, necessity and reasonableness of the suspect’s arrest.”

Prosecutors announced Monday that they were seeking to arrest Park on charges relating to abuse of power, accepting bribes and leaking important information. Park had been held in a temporary detention facility at the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office Building ahead of the court’s decision.

Park will be taken to Seoul Detention Center, which is located just outside Seoul and where her confidant Choi Soon-sil and some of the high-profile figures embroiled in an ongoing scandal, including Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, have been detained.

“The suspect abused the mighty power and position as president to take bribes from companies and infringed upon the freedom of corporate management and leaked important confidential official information,” the statement from the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said.

Park has not yet been formally indicted, prosecutors told CNN, and it’s unclear when that will occur.

Park was removed from office on March 10, after South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld a decision to impeach her for alleged corruption.

The former president was accused of helping a confidant raise donations from companies for foundations she had set up.

The scandal dominated the headlines in South Korea and prompted mass protests when it emerged late last year. The controversy centered around Park’s friend and close adviser, Choi Soon-sil, who is alleged to have significant and inappropriate influence over Park. Choi is currently on trial for abuse of power and fraud.

The Constitutional Court’s impeachment ruling stripped Park of her presidential immunity and cleared the way for prosecutors to seek her arrest.

A presidential election will be held on May 9 to choose a new leader.</s>A South Korean court has approved the arrest of former President Park Geun-hye over allegations of corruption.

The allegations have already ended her troubled four years in office, and prompted an election to find her successor.

Park, South Korea's first female president, was elected in 2012 on a tide of nostalgia for the era of her late dictator father, who himself ruled for 18 years despite a swathe of alleged human rights abuses.

She is accused of colluding with another to extort money from big businesses and of taking a bribe from one of the companies, among other claims.

Millions of South Koreans took to the streets to protest after the allegations came to light, with demonstrations every weekend for months before the Constititional Court ruled to remove her from the post on March 10.

Her presidential powers had already been suspended after Parliament impeached her in December.

Thursday's ruling, by the Seoul Central District Court, meant Park was expected to be taken to a detention centre shortly afterwards.

She can be detained for up to 20 days before prosecutors file formal charges, meaning she may be in jail while her case is heard.
Authorities arrest Impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets.