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SEOUL: The South Korean Supreme Court upheld a 20-year prison term for former President Park Geun-hye on Thursday (January 14) for bribery and other crimes as it concluded a landmark corruption case that marked a shocking drop in disgrace for the first country of the country. female leader and conservative icon.
The ruling means that Park, who was ousted and arrested in 2017, is potentially serving a combined 22 years behind bars, following a separate conviction for illegally meddling with her party’s nominations of candidates ahead of the 2016 parliamentary elections.
But the completion of her prison sentence also makes her eligible for a special presidential pardon, an imminent possibility as the country’s deeply divided electorate nears the presidential election in March next year.
President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who won the presidential election after Park’s impeachment, has yet to directly address the possibility of releasing his predecessor.
But at least one prominent member of Moon’s Democratic Party, President Lee Nak-yon, has floated the idea of pardoning Park and another jailed former president, Lee Myung-bak, who is serving a 17-year term on his own charges. corruption, as a gesture of “national unity”.
Park, 68, has described herself as the victim of political revenge. She has refused to attend his trials since October 2017 and did not attend Thursday’s ruling.
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Moon’s office, which recently saw its approval rating drop to new lows over economic woes, political scandals and rising coronavirus infections, had no immediate response to the ruling.
Park, the daughter of slain military dictator Park Chung-hee, was convicted of colluding with her longtime confidant, Choi Soon-sil, to accept millions of dollars in bribes and extortion from some of the country’s largest business groups including Samsung, while she was in office from 2013 to 2016.
She was also accused of illegally accepting monthly funds from her espionage bosses that were diverted from the agency’s budget.
After weeks of protests by millions, Park was indicted by lawmakers in December 2016 and officially removed from office in March 2017 after the Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment.
Park originally faced a prison term of more than 30 years before the Supreme Court sent his cases to a lower court in 2019.
The Seoul High Court in 2018 sentenced her to 25 years in prison after reviewing her charges of bribery, extortion, abuse of power and other convictions together.
But the Supreme Court in October 2019 ordered the Seoul Supreme Court to handle Park’s bribery charge separately from other charges, based on a law that requires it for cases involving a president or other officials. elected, even when the alleged crimes are committed together.
The Superior Court had granted Park a five-year term on the spy fund charges in July 2019, but the Supreme Court also ordered a retrial for the case in November.
Prosecutors appealed after the Seoul High Court gave Park a 20-year term in July last year on the charges.
