SEOUL, South Korea " Former President Roh Moo-hyun, embroiled in a penetrating corruption investigation, leaped to his death " a shocking end for a man whose rags-to-riches rise took him from rural poverty to Seoul's presidential Blue House. He was 62.
Roh, a self-taught lawyer who never attended college and didn't have the elite background typical of Seoul politicians, had prided himself on being a "clean" leader immune to South Korea's traditional web of corruption.
Allegations that Roh, president from 2003-08, accepted $6 million in bribes from a businessman while in office weighed heavily on the ex-leader, who appeared emotionally wrought last month as he prepared to face prosecutors.
Roh hurled himself off a 100 foot high cliff early Saturday while hiking, trailed by a security guard, near his home in Bongha, police in the nearby southern port city of Busan said. Life had become unbearable and "too many people are suffering because of me," Roh wrote in a note found on his computer, police said.
"What's left for me for the rest of my life is just to be a burden to others," his note said. "Don't be too sad. Aren't life and death both part of nature? Don't feel sorry. Don't blame anybody. It's destiny." He asked to be cremated, a small gravestone erected near his home.
Roh's suicide stunned the nation. At train stations and shopping malls across the country, South Koreans were glued to TV monitors. Many snapped up special newspaper editions about Roh. Tens of thousands flooded his Web site, many posting condolences.
"I was utterly shocked," said Chun Soon-im, 63, of Seoul. "They say 'hate the sin but not the sinner,' and that's how I feel. The investigation must continue and we must get to the truth, but I cannot help feeling sorry for the man and those left behind."
Mourners wailed as Roh's coffin, draped in red, returned to Bongha from a Busan hospital. His two children, sobbing, followed the casket to the community center near his birthplace of Gimhae, some 280 miles from Seoul. About 13,000 people had paid their respects at a mourning site at the village's community center, police said.
In Seoul, more than 2,500 people held a somber candlelight memorial service Saturday night near the capital's Deoksu Palace, many bowing, burning incense and leaving white chrysanthemums, a traditional Korean symbol of grief.