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Director of MH Group (YouTube screenshot)

Little is known about the MH Group, the international legal team hired by former president Park Geun-hye which told CNN that Park – who is being tried on charges of receiving bribes – is suffering serious human rights abuses while in jail. CNN reported that the MH Group is not connected with Park’s legal team in South Korea and that the group has handled lawsuits connected with international law and diplomacy for high-profile figures such as Saif Gadhafi, son of former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.

The main page of the group’s website displays links to four press releases. Aside from one about Saif Gadhafi that was posted on June 14, the other three are all related to Park.

The first document, which was posted on July 7, states that Dr. Mishana Hosseinioun, the president of the MH Group, led a legal team defending Saif Gaddafi at the African Court of Human Rights. In 2011, Saif was arrested and sentenced to death on the charge of massacring dissidents with his father.

Dr. Mishana Hosseinioun

The younger Gaddafi spent six years in prison before being released on June 9 of this year, following a pardon by Libya’s provisional government. On June 14, five days later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) asked the Libyan government to immediately arrest Saif and surrender him to ICC. The MH Group contends that Saif’s right to a fair trial has been infringed.

The first mention of Park appears in a press release posted on Aug. 15. The document says that Hosseinioun instructed Rodney Dixon QC, a British barrister based at a London law firm, “to launch urgent proceedings before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva [which reports to the UN Human Rights Council] and other UN bodies to protect the former President’s rights and safeguard her well-being.”

“A popularly elected female head of state in East Asia and South Korea’s first female president, Ms. Park was abruptly impeached by the National Assembly in 2016 and forced out of office on 10 March 2017,” the press release said, basically repeating the claims of Park’s supporters.

A statement on Sept. 20 expressed concerns about “the continuing detention and ill treatment of President Park Geun-hye in South Korea,” and a statement on Oct. 13 strongly criticized the extension of Park’s period of detention.

The apparent reason that Hosseinioun defended Saif Gaddafi after he was indicted by the Libyan government and the ICC on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the popular uprising in Libya in 2011 was due to their ties in the UK. An article in the Guardian from June 13, 2012, describes Hosseinioun as “an Iranian friend of Saif who is studying in the UK, from where she has been soliciting legal representation for him.” Hosseinioun has reportedly received a doctorate in the UK as well. Some analysts believe that a Korean-American group that supports Park made contact with the MH Group.

By Cho Seung-hyun, staff reporter and Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]