SEOUL — He was a self-styled Internet prophet, an economic pundit who went by the name of Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom.
In weblogs posted last year that drew a cult-like following, he pontificated on South Korea's ailing economy, castigated policymakers and forecast dire scenarios that many investors took to heart. He was a genius, they said, a mysterious inside trader with a Matt Drudge-like acumen for scoops that uncannily predicted the global economic crisis.
But prosecutors say he crossed the line. On Thursday, Park Dae-sung appeared in Seoul's Central District Court, handcuffed and in a light-gray jail jumpsuit, as his attorneys made a motion to dismiss charges that as Minerva he spread false rumors damaging to the government's reputation in the world financial market.
In a Dec. 29 posting, the online commentator wrote that the government had ordered financial institutions to stop buying dollars as it tried to curb the fall of the won, South Korea's currency, against the greenback.
The posting devastated the local foreign exchange market, forcing the nation's financial authority to spend $2 billion to bolster the won as the demand for dollars surged wildly, prosecutors say.
Park's arrest has pierced the Minerva mystique. He reportedly has told authorities that he had never invested in stocks or gained financially from his postings. Park, who is unemployed, has said he briefly attended community college and never believed his writings would jeopardize his nation's economy.
"I'm not a serial killer," he reportedly told his lawyers before the proceeding. "Frankly, I'm scared. It's scary that I should talk with my hands handcuffed."
The arrest also has triggered a fierce debate over freedom of expression in South Korea. Park's supporters insist that he was merely a blogger expressing his opinions and that the charges against him jeopardize the integrity of the nation's Internet culture.
Prosecutors counter that the government needs to bring more accountability to Internet postings.
Last year a well-known actress committed suicide after what police called an act of cyber-terrorism. Choi Jin-sil hanged herself amid a barrage of postings claiming that she had lent large amounts of money to an actor who took his own life.
Park Chan-jong, a former National Assembly member who is representing Park Dae-sung, said the two cases were different because his client was merely expressing his opinion and was not engaged in personal attacks.
