Park Geun-hye: South Korea’s Supreme Court upholds 20-year prison sentence for former leader

Park Geun-hye: South Korea’s Supreme Court upholds 20-year prison sentence for former leader

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Park was initially sentenced to 24 years in prison after being convicted on several charges of abuse of power, bribery and coercion. The charges relate to a massive, high-impact case that sparked widespread protests, involving some of the country’s most powerful figures and saw her removed from office in 2017.

Park’s 2018 sentence was reduced to 20 years last July after a retrial. Prosecutors have appealed the sentence and demanded a heavier sentence, but on Thursday the Supreme Court upheld South Korea Park’s 20-year prison sentence, according to a news release from the court.

The Supreme Court is the highest court in South Korea, meaning that Thursday’s ruling is expected to be the end of Park’s legal path to appeal her sentence.

Park will have to serve 22 years behind bars – she will receive an extra two-year prison sentence for a 2018 conviction for interfering with candidates for the Saenuri Party, a conservative political party previously led by her.

“This is the conclusion of a state corruption case that follows the people’s candlelight revolution, accusation by the Assembly and a judicial decision. It is a manifestation of the constitutional spirit of our democratic republic and indicates the promotion and maturity of the Korean democracy, “said Pres. Blue House said in a statement Thursday. “We need to make sure we view this unfortunate event – the imprisonment of the former president – as a historic lesson and not repeat it.”

South Korea corruption scandal

Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, became South Korea’s first female president when she came to power in 2013.

But her term has been marred by controversy and in 2017 she becomes the country’s first democratically elected leader to be forcibly removed from office after the country’s constitutional court upheld a parliamentary vote to accuse her.

The vote came after millions of South Koreans took to the streets in a matter of months to demand Park’s expulsion, after revelations surfaced about the undue influence of her adviser and confidant Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a cult leader, exercised.

Shortly after Park was stripped of her office, she was arrested and executed for soliciting bribes from major conglomerates in the country, including Samsung. In 2018, she stood trial over separate allegations that she had received illegal funds from the National Intelligence Service.
Several others were also involved in the scandal. In 2018, the confidant of Park, Choi, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on 18 charges, including abuse of power, coercion, fraud and bribery, and was fined $ 16.6 million.
In 2017, Samsung chief executive Lee Jae-yong was convicted of bribery and other corruption charges and sentenced to five years in prison. In 2018, a higher court reduced his sentence and suspended it for four years, although he has since undergone a retrial of the charge, and a verdict is expected next week. In a related case, he was charged last year with a controversial merger in 2015 that helped him tighten control over the company.

CNN’s Paula Hancocks, Yoonjung Seo and James Griffiths contributed to this report.

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