South Korea's Park may be in larger cell than others, but lights out at 9

Seoul: Dressed in the green jumpsuit of undertrials, ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye's days at the Seoul Detention Centre will start at 6:30 a.m. and end at 9 p.m. 

The only privilege the 65-year-old could have over other inmates will be slightly more space and a toilet and shower in an adjoining room, rather than within her cell, former correctional and prosecution officials said.

An official at the detention centre said she was assigned a single cell but declined to provide further details.

At the beginning of this month, Park was residing at the sprawling presidential Blue House. She shifted to her private home in an upscale Seoul neighbourhood after the Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment for conspiring with longtime friend Choi Soon-sil to raise millions of dollars for foundations from the country's conglomerates.

Park and Choi both deny wrongdoing.
Park was driven to the detention centre on the outskirts of Seoul just before dawn on Friday after a district court approved prosecutors' request for an arrest warrant. Ashen-faced and flanked by two female officers in the back seat of a black sedan, Park's hair was down, apparently because she had removed the hairpins that held her hair in her trademark chignon style. 

At the centre, she went through an ID check and a simple health examination, and correctional officers took a mugshot, as they do with other inmates.

Park will be held in detention for up to 20 days while she is investigated and possibly indicted on charges that could imprison her for at least 10 years. 

As a former president she will likely be assigned a cell that will be larger than the 6.56 square meter (71 square foot) solitary units occupied by others accused of wrongdoing in the same scandal, including the head of the Samsung conglomerate, Jay Y. Lee. 

 

"I think Park would stay in a better facility," said Kim Kyung-soo, a retired prosecutor who interrogated two former military presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, after their arrests in 1995 for treason and bribery. 

"And she will use a bigger cell than those of others." 
Apart from the cell, Park will be subject to the same rules on everything from meals to room inspections, the former prosecutors and prison officials said.

That includes rising at about 6:30 a.m. and going to bed at around 9 p.m, and being allowed to watch television during the day but only a single channel with pre-recorded programmes authorised by the Justice Ministry. 

Visitors are limited to one a day but detained inmates are allowed unlimited meeting time with their lawyers.