The Latest: North Korea calls South’s gov’t deformed, stupid

Choi Soon-sil, center wearing a hat, a cult leader's daughter with a decades-long connection to President Park Geun-hye, is questioned by media upon her arrival at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 31, 2016. Telling reporters Monday that she "deserves death," the woman at the center of a scandal roiling South Korea met prosecutors examining whether she used her close ties to Park to pull government strings from the shadows and amass an illicit fortune. The signs read "Arrest Choi Soon-sil" and "Step Down Park Geun-hye." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) Choi Soon-sil, center wearing a hat, a cult leader's daughter with a decades-long connection to President Park Geun-hye, is questioned by media upon her arrival at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 31, 2016. Telling reporters Monday that she "deserves death," the woman at the center of a scandal roiling South Korea met prosecutors examining whether she used her close ties to Park to pull government strings from the shadows and amass an illicit fortune. The signs read "Arrest Choi Soon-sil" and "Step Down Park Geun-hye." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

By Associated Press November 1, 2016 3 min read

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The Latest on South Korea’s political scandal (all times local):

12:30 p.m.

North Korea is joyfully jumping into a bizarre political scandal rocking Seoul, calling it the inevitable result of a corrupt regime and saying the administration of South Korean President Park Geun-hye is “the most deformed, abnormal and stupid in contemporary society.”

Pyongyang, while allowing none of its media the freedom to point criticism at its own leadership, has wasted no opportunity to lambaste Park in the harshest ways it can.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday called the scandal a “hideous power-backed corruption case unprecedented in South Korean history.”