S. Korean impeached president Park sentenced to 25 years in prison by appeals court

SEOUL, Aug. 24  — Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s impeached and ousted president, was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison by an appeals court over corruption charges including bribery, exposing the deep-rooted collusive ties between politicians and businessmen.
The Seoul High Court raised Park’s sentence by one year from the lower court’s ruling of the 24-year imprisonment. Park was fined 20 billion won (18 million U.S. dollars), higher than the lower court’s fine of 18 billion won (16 million U.S. dollars).
The appellate court increased the acknowledged amount of bribes that Park and Choi Soon-sil, Park’s decades-long friend at the center of the corruption scandal, received from Samsung Group, the country’s biggest family-controlled conglomerate.
It ruled that Park ordered or approved the national pension fund’s vote in favor of the 2015 merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, the two Samsung units merged to create the de-facto holding company of Samsung.
The merger helped Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the heir apparent to Samsung, strengthen his management control over the entire conglomerate. Park recognized it and was tacitly requested for assistance, the high court said reversing the lower court’s ruling.
Park was charged with coercing large businesses, including Samsung, Lotte and SK, into donating tens of millions of U.S. dollars to two non-profit foundations controlled by Choi, but the appeals court did not see the donations as kickbacks, upholding the lower court’s ruling.
The corruption scandal disclosed the country’s inveterate cozy relations between politicians and businessmen, which accompanied a rapid economic rise.
“The accused abused her presidential position and power, given by the people, to seriously infringe on the corporate rights to property and the corporate freedom of management,” said the appellate court ruling.
It said the immoral deals between political and business powers damaged the essence of democracy and distorted the order of market economy, which caused a serious sense of loss to the people.
The Samsung heir was sentenced in August last year to five years in jail, but he was released from prison in February as the appellate court reduced the amount of bribes Lee offered to Park and Choi.
The ruling by the appeals court on Park’s case was forecast to place Lee in a legal jeopardy as the Samsung heir was waiting for the final ruling by the Supreme Court.
The appeals court sentenced Choi, Park’s longtime confidante, to 20 years in jail, upholding the lower court’s ruling.
Park did not appear in court for her case. She refused to attend any court hearings since October last year, calling it a political revenge.
Park was impeached by lawmakers in December 2016 after weeks of candlelit rallies, in which hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets every weekend demanding her resignation.
The Constitutional Court upheld the parliament’s decision in March 2017, making her become the first South Korean leader to be impeached by the National Assembly. Park was arrested three weeks later. – XINHUA