The mayor of Seoul is found dead

Police found his body in the northern part of Seoul, near where the signal from his mobile phone was discovered for the last time in his search.

The mayor of the South Korean capital was missing on Thursday after leaving a message his daughter described as a testament, police said.

His daughter called the police today and said her father left a verbal message “as a testament” before leaving their home about 4-5 hours ago. She did not explain the content of the message, said an officer at the Metropolitan Police Agency in Seoul, who was responsible for the search operation.

About 300-400 officers and a threat were mobilised in the search, according to police.

Kim Ji-hyeong, an official of Seoul's Metropolitan government, said Park had not been submitted to work Thursday for undesigned reasons and had cancelled his entire programme, including a meeting with a presidential official at his town office in Seoul.

The reason for Park's disappearance was not clear. The Seoul-based SBS television network reported that one of Park's secretaries had filed a police complaint Wednesday evening about alleged sexual harassment such as unwanted physical contact.

Park's secretary told police investigators that an indefinite number of other female employees in Seoul's municipality had suffered similar sexual harassment on the part of the mayor.