SEOUL — Ex-President Roh Moo-hyun will enter familiar territory for a former South Korean head of state this week when he is grilled by prosecutors over his alleged role in a national bribery scandal.
The onetime human rights lawyer and judge is the third South Korean president since 1995 to face a corruption probe after leaving office. He is suspected of soliciting $6 million in bribes from a shoemaking magnate that were allegedly paid to his wife and son.
Roh, 62, has acknowledged that his wife accepted $1 million from footwear manufacturer Park Yeon-cha but denied involvement in any influence-peddling. He has characterized the $5 million his son got from Park as an investment loan.
The former president was summoned to meet with prosecutors this Thursday. Recent postings on his website suggest that he is appealing for public sympathy in the face of the disgrace of even being called before prosecutors.
"What I have to do now is bow to the nation and apologize," wrote Roh, who served as president from 2003 to 2008. "From now on, the name Roh cannot be a symbol of the values you pursue. I'm no longer qualified to speak about democracy and justice. . . . You should abandon me."
Analysts differ over the probe's political implications and what the succession of fallen ex-presidents says about the fledgling brand of democracy in South Korea, which only embraced public elections in the late 1980s.
Some suggest that the Roh investigation is fallout from an entrenched practice of the political party in power, in this case the Grand National Party, seeking to embarrass leaders of the opposition party it replaced -- Roh's Uri Party.
"Politics in any country is a knife fight, and South Korea is no exception. Whoever loses power is set upon by the new group in a very bare-knuckled fashion," said David Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC.
Some analysts said new administrations in many nations are left to clean up the legal mess left by their predecessors. They pointed to President Obama's questions as to the legality of Bush administration policies regarding the alleged torture of suspected terrorists.
Before Roh's brush with scandal, former Presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were convicted in 1996 of crimes, including bribery and treason. Both were pardoned after two years in jail.
Although Roh Moo-hyun had entered Seoul's Blue House as a reformer, his administration soon showed it was not above scandal.
