SEOUL: Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-Hye is now just prisoner 503, incarcerated in a spartan cell while prosecutors decide whether to indict her over a corruption scandal that precipitated her fall from grace.

The former head of state spent her first night in solitary confinement at Seoul Detention Centre after a court on Friday ordered her to be held pending charges.

She had her mugshot taken and was given a prison kit including toiletries, a meal tray and a quilt, reports said.

After being processed like any other prisoner, Park, 65, was assigned a 10.6 square metre (114 square feet) solitary cell, larger than the average 6.5 square metre cell, Yonhap news agency said.

“After taking a bath, she changed into green-coloured winter-season prison garb” an official of the Justice Ministry was quoted as saying by the Joongang Ilbo daily.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2017