Student Radicals Occupy Hanbo Headquarters

Korea Herald, 8 May 1997

SEOUL, May 8 (Korea Herald)—Six student radicals, three women and three men, briefly occupied part of the scandal-ridden Hanbo Business Group headquarters, demanding the arrest of South Korean President Kim Young-Sam and his son.

The six hung a 10-meter-long (30-foot-long) slogan down from the rooftop of the three-storey building in southern Seoul and chanted: Down with Kim Young-Sam! Arrest Kim Hyun-Chul! an AFP photographer at the scene saw.

With a table-size national flag knotted around their necks and draped over their chests, the students resisted arrest by threatening to throw themselves off the rooftop. The protest ended after they were dragged down by some 10 riot policemen, who had to pry them loose from the rooftop scaffolding they were clinging to.

The students scattered leaflets from the roof demanding that the Kims be arrested for their alleged involvement in the loans-for-kickbacks scandal engulfing Hanbo. The opposition charged that the President’s son was at the center of the Hanbo scandal, but prosecution authorities cleared him of involvement in the case.