SEOUL - South Korea’s ousted President Park Geun-hye was arrested on Friday over the corruption and abuse of power scandal that brought her down, a court spokesman said. 

The Seoul Central District Court issued a warrant to arrest Park on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets, after a marathon court hearing the previous day. 

She is the third former president of South Korea to be arrested over criminal allegations, Yonhap reports. 

The Seoul Central District Court earlier issued a warrant to detain Ms Park on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and leaking government secrets, after a nearly nine-hour court hearing on Thursday. 

Park lost her presidential immunity and was dismissed from her post when the constitutional court upheld a decision by parliament to impeach her. 

Choi is accused of using her presidential connections to pressure companies to give millions of dollars in donations to non-profit foundations she controlled. 

Park is alleged to have been personally involved in this, and to have given Ms Choi unacceptable levels of access to official documents. 

Judges had said the former president had broken the law by allowing Ms Choi to meddle in state affairs, and had breached guidelines on official secrets by leaking numerous documents.