SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s recently impeached and ousted president, Park Geun-hye, was formally indicted on Monday on charges of collecting or demanding $52 million in bribes, becoming the first leader put on criminal trial since the mid-1990s, when two former military-backed presidents were imprisoned for corruption and mutiny.
Prosecutors arrested Ms. Park on 13 criminal charges in March. They have questioned her five times in her jail cell outside Seoul. In the indictment on Monday, the number of criminal charges against Ms. Park increased to 18, including bribery, coercion, abuse of office and illegal leaking of government secrets.
The indictment, a widely expected follow-up to Ms. Park’s arrest, will prompt the Seoul Central District Court to open a trial. The court is expected to assign the case to a three-judge panel soon.
The judges will then set the date for the first hearing in what will become the biggest court trial since the former military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death and his friend and successor, Roh Tae-woo, was sentenced to 22½ years in prison on bribery, mutiny and sedition charges in 1996. (Their sentences were later reduced, and they were pardoned and released in 1997.)
Months of political turmoil and intrigue, set in motion when huge crowds began gathering in central Seoul in the fall to demand Ms. Park’s resignation, were capped by a Constitutional Court ruling in early March that formally removed her from office.
The National Assembly had voted in December to impeach her on charges of bribery, extortion and abuse of power.
The sprawling corruption scandal implicated the leadership of Samsung, the nation’s largest conglomerate, and other big businesses, rekindling public furor over decades-old ties between government and corporations in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
The coercion charge against Ms. Park stems from $68 million she and a longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, were accused of extorting from big businesses in the form of “donations” to two foundations that Ms. Choi controlled.
But a more damning charge against Ms. Park and Ms. Choi was bribery. The $52 million they were accused of collecting or demanding in bribes from businesses included $38 million in bribes or promised bribes from Samsung. Ms. Choi and the company’s top executive, Lee Jae-yong, were also under arrest and on trial.
On Monday, prosecutors also charged Ms. Park and Ms. Choi with demanding bribes worth $6.2 million from the retail conglomerate Lotte and $7.8 million from the telecommunications and semiconductor conglomerate SK. Shin Dong-bin, the chairman of Lotte, was indicted on bribery charges on Monday. But Mr. Shin, who was already on trial on tax evasion and embezzlement charges stemming from a separate corruption scandal, was not arrested.
Lotte had no immediate reaction on Monday.
Both Lotte and SK had lost valuable licenses to run duty-free shops in 2015 and lobbied to regain them last year. Mr. Shin was accused of paying the $6.2 million bribe in May while seeking government help to regain the license. The money was later returned, but Lotte won back its license in December.
Ms. Park and Ms. Choi were accused of demanding a $7.8 million bribe from SK, prosecutors said on Monday. But SK did not pay the money, and its chairman, Chey Tae-won, was spared indictment on Monday. (SK did not get back its duty-free shop license.)
In a trial that began last month, Mr. Lee, the third-generation scion of the family that runs the Samsung conglomerate and the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, has vehemently denied the bribery and other charges against him. He has said that he sought no favor from Ms. Park’s government in return for the money Samsung admitted contributing to support Ms. Choi’s foundations and her daughter.
Prosecutors said that what the company called “donations” were bribes used to win government support for the contentious 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, which they say helped Mr. Lee cement control of the conglomerate.
Ms. Park, too, has denied the charges against her, arguing that she was victimized by her political enemies.
The removal and arrest of Ms. Park, an icon of the conservative establishment, have been a crushing blow to that camp.
Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo, leading contenders in the election next month to select Ms. Park’s successor, were both opposition politicians and vocal critics of her four-year run in power, which they said symbolized a government that served the privileged rather than the common good and that continued corrupt ties with big businesses. Two conservative candidates are polling in the single digits in pre-election surveys.
Ms. Park’s downfall and the presidential election in South Korea also have the potential to rattle the delicate balance of international diplomacy in Asia at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea.
Both Mr. Moon and Mr. Ahn criticized the hard-line North Korean policy of Ms. Park’s government and Washington. They said that sanctions and pressure alone had failed to stop the North’s nuclear and missile programs and that it was time to try dialogue.
Ms. Park is the daughter of the former military dictator Park Chung-hee, who seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled South Korea with martial law and the arbitrary arrests and torture of dissidents before he was assassinated by his spy chief in 1979.
Ms. Park was the first leader of South Korea to be forced from office in response to popular pressure since the founding president, Syngman Rhee, fled into exile in Hawaii in 1960 after protests against his corrupt, authoritarian rule.
If she is convicted of bribery, Ms. Park, 65, could face 10 years to life in prison, although her successor has the power to free her with a presidential pardon.
