A senior police officer was indicted Saturday on charges of writing a presidential document claiming a former aide to President Park Geun-hye tried to exert undue influence on state affairs, prosecutors said.

Superintendent Park Kwan-cheon is suspected of authoring and leaking presidential documents spanning more than 100 pages, including one that said Chung Yoon-hoi, who was President Park’s adviser before she was elected, pulled strings to try and replace the president’s current chief of staff, Kim Ki-choon, prosecutors said.

Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office suspects that Park made false accusations against Chung, and copied the documents and kept them in his office after leaving the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

Some of the presidential documents hidden in Park’s office were leaked to the local daily Segye Times, according to the prosecutors.

Charges against Park include leaking confidential information, violating the law governing presidential documents, hiding official documents, and making false accusations, they said.

Separately, Chung filed a lawsuit against a reporter of the monthly news magazine Sisa Journal over an article alleging that he hired someone to follow the president’s younger brother, Park Ji-man.

The prosecution office earlier confirmed that the superintendent had authored the document alleging that Chung hired a man to follow the younger Park.

The allegations of Chung’s behind-the-scenes intervention in state affairs have become a major scandal for the Park administration ahead of the start of its third year in power in February.

Prosecutors said they plan to announce on Monday an interim report on its investigation into the case.

Chung was rumored to be meddling in state affairs and engaging in a power struggle with the president’s brother. The prosecution concluded that the rumors were groundless. But the controversy intensified as allegations were brought by a local newspaper that disclosed a leaked presidential document reporting on Chung and his secretive meeting with Cheong Wa Dae staff.

The scandal highlighted Park’s closed-off image, and internal conflicts among her secretaries at the nation’s top office. Some analysts also gave a negative outlook, saying that the scandal could give the president early lame duck status in the New Year.

The trial hearings on the Seoul bureau of Sankei Shimbun came under the spotlight amid the Chung Yoon-hoi scandal involving an alleged power struggle among incumbent and former presidential aides.

The prosecution had indicted Tatsuya Kato, the former bureau chief of the Japanese newspaper, on charges of defaming President Park Geun-hye “with a groundless report.”

Its Aug. 3 article speculated that Park was not at Cheong Wa Dae when the ferry capsized on the morning of April 16, raising the possibility that she was privately meeting a male confidant at a location outside the presidential office. (Yonhap)