Investigation into Korea cult intensifies
SEOUL (AFP): South Korean prosecutors yesterday stepped up an investigation into a cult linked to several murders, heightening concerns about the country's many sects.
Prosecutors are investigating how the Aga Garden (Baby Garden) sect -- whose woman leader is on the run -- persuaded officials and politicians to make its commune a model agricultural zone in 1993, officials said.
After the designation, the sect's commune in Yochon County in the southern suburbs of Seoul received a $3-million-government subsidy.
Armed with court search warrants, investigators searched the bank accounts of Aga members and four firms owned by the cult, including Synnara Records which accounts for a quarter of South Korea's record business.
Prosecutors said the sect had violated strict regulations on converting forest into residential areas while building the commune since early 1980s. The authorities had never taken any action.
The investigators had already called in officials to determine whether bribes may have been taken.
Prosecutors on Wednesday arrested four devotees of the cult on charges of murdering two followers and a seven-year-old boy.
The cult's woman leader, Kim Ki-Soon, 56, is on the run with five top executives.
She is accused of ordering the killing of at least three people, including a girlfriend of her son, prosecutors said.
Kim broke away from a controversial Doomsday Christian sect and established her own group with 300 followers in 1982. She dubbed herself Aga or "baby" in Korean -- on the basis that she was free from sin as she was as innocent as a baby.
She allegedly forced followers into slave labor and banned all forms of pleasure, including sex, even between married couples.
But alongside cardboard boxes stuffed with one million dollars in cash in her luxurious bedroom, prosecutors found a Japanese pornographic videotape, entitled "Hot Love."
The investigation was launched following a complaint by 32 followers who claimed they were forced to donate their assets, and work for 10 years with no pay.
Police troops on Wednesday mounted guard at the commune to prevent cult members from committing a possible mass suicide.
In August 1988, 32 followers of Odaeyang (Five Ocean) cult were found dead, apparently after a mass suicide pact.
In a separate case, the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office reopened an investigation of another doomsday cult, Yongsaeng (Eternal Life), following the discovery of human remains believed to be those of a missing member.