South Korea: Ex-president Park Geun-hye’s lengthy jail time period upheld
2 min read South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 20-year jail time period for former President Park Geun-hye over bribery and different crimes.
It is the ultimate ruling within the historic corruption case that noticed the nation’s first feminine chief impeached in 2017 and concludes a prolonged authorized course of.
In complete, she might serve as much as 22 years, following a separate conviction for illegally meddling in her social gathering’s candidate nominations forward of parliamentary elections in 2016.
The court docket on Thursday additionally upheld fines and forfeits totaling 21.5 billion received (€16 million, $19.5 million).
Park was not current in court docket on Thursday. She has boycotted court docket proceedings since October 2017, claiming they’re biased towards her.
What did Park Geun-hye do?
She was convicted of colluding together with her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, to take tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes and extortion from a few of the nation’s largest enterprise teams, together with Samsung, whereas she was in workplace from 2013 to 2016.
She was additionally indicted on expenses of illegally taking month-to-month funds from her intelligence chiefs that had been diverted from the company’s finances.
A timeline of court docket dates
Park was impeached by lawmakers in December 2016, following weeks-long well-liked protests.
She was formally faraway from workplace in March 2017 after the Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment.
The Seoul High Court in 2018 had sentenced her to 25 years in jail after reviewing her of bribery, extortion, abuse of energy and different convictions collectively.
But the Supreme Court in October 2019 ordered the Seoul High Court to cope with Park’s bribery cost individually from different expenses. This was based mostly on a regulation for circumstances involving a president or different elected officers, even when the alleged crimes are dedicated collectively.
The High Court had handed Park a five-year time period over the spy fund expenses in July 2019, however the Supreme Court additionally ordered a retrial on the case in November.
Prosecutors appealed after the Seoul High Court handed Park a 20-year time period in July final 12 months over the costs.
Could Park be pardoned?
Finalizing of her jail time period makes Park eligible for a particular presidential pardon.
Lee Nak-yon, the chief of President Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party, stated earlier this month he “plans to suggest” pardoning Park and Lee Myung-bak, one other former president at the moment serving a jail time period. This suggestion confronted an instantaneous backlash from politicians throughout the spectrum.
