Court hearing begins on whether to issue arrest warrant for chief of bakery giant SPC

A Seoul court began a hearing on Thursday to determine whether to issue a warrant to arrest Hur Young-in, the chairman of bakery giant SPC Group, on charges of forcing bakers at a group affiliate to quit their labor union. The 74-year-old chairman was accused of involvement in coercing bakers at Paris Baguette, a popular SPC bakery chain, to withdraw their membership of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) between 2019 and 2022. Suspicions against him also include involvement in efforts to shift KCTU-affiliated bakers to another umbrella union, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, deemed friendlier toward the bakery conglomerate. The Seoul Central District Court convened a hearing earlier in the afternoon to determine whether to grant an arrest warrant for Hur. Prosecutors sought the warrant the previous day after Hur ignored summons for questioning four times since last month. Prosecutors detained Hur at a hospital in Seoul on Tuesday, a day after he snubbed the latest of the four summonses for questioning. The warrant, if granted, would extend Hur's custody for questioning. In a statement released on Thursday, SPC Group expressed "strong regrets," arguing that the charges against their chairman are not sufficiently clear for prosecutors to seek an arrest warrant against an elderly patient hospitalized. Source: Yonhap News Agency