SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The South Korean Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for former President Park Geun-hye over bribery and other crimes for ending a historic corruption case that sparked a grace for the country means first female leader and conservative icon.
The ruling means that Park, who was removed from office and arrested in 2017, could serve a total of 22 years behind bars, following a separate conviction for illegally interfering with her party’s candidate nominations before the parliamentary election. in 2016.
But the finalization of her prison sentence also makes her eligible for a special presidential pardon, a looming possibility as the country’s deeply divided voters approach the next presidential election in March 2022.
President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who won the presidential election after removing Park, has not yet directly addressed the possibility of freeing his predecessor. Moon recently saw its approval ratings drop below new lows over economic problems, political scandals and rising coronavirus infections.
Many conservative politicians have asked Moon to release Park and another convicted former president, Lee Myung-bak, who is serving a 17-year term due to his own corruption charges. At least one prominent member of Moon’s Democratic Party, Lee Nak-yon, endorsed the idea of forgiving the former presidents as a gesture for ‘national unity’.
Park, 68, described herself as a victim of political revenge. She has refused to attend her hearings since October 2017 and did not attend Thursday’s ruling. Her lawyer did not return calls for comment.
The downfall of Park and Lee Myung-bak ended badly in South Korea’s decades-long presidential corps, which has fueled criticism that the country may place too much that can be easily abused and often does not fall into the hands of elected leaders.
Nearly every former president, or their relatives and aides, have been caught in scandals at the end of their term of office or after leaving office.
One president, Park’s dictatorial father, Park Chung-hee, was assassinated in 1979 by his spy chief. Another former president, Roh Moo-hyun, Moon’s longtime friend and political mentor, jumped to his death in 2009 amid allegations that his family members were bribing a businessman during his presidency.
Moon spokesman Kang Min-seok said the ruling on Park Geun-hye indicated the “maturation and growth” of South Korea’s democracy, but added that the imprisonment of a former president for crimes was an “unfortunate one”. “history is not to be repeated. . Presidential officials avoided specific answers when asked about the possibility that Moon and Park could forgive Park and Lee.
Democratic Party spokeswoman Shin Young-Day asked Park to apologize for the “unwarranted shame” she had left on the country’s history.
Park was convicted of conspiracy with her longtime confidant, Choi Soon-sil, to take millions of dollars in bribes and extortion money from some of the country’s largest business groups, including Samsung, while she was in office from 2013 to 2016.
She was also charged on charges of illegally accepting money monthly from her spy chiefs who were diverted outside 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 accusation.
It was not immediately clear how the ruling on Thursday would affect the lawsuit of billionaire Samsung Jaion-yong. The 52-year-old vice president of Samsung Electronics is set to stand trial in the Seoul Supreme Court next week on charges of bribing Park and Choi to win government support for a 2015 merger between two Samsung subsidiaries that helped strengthen his control. about the country’s largest business group.
Prosecutors are seeking a nine-year prison sentence for Lee, who is being charged separately on charges of manipulating stock prices, breach of trust and breaches of the audit in connection with the merger. Lee’s lawyers portrayed him as a victim of abuse of power by presidents and described the 2015 agreement as part of ‘normal business operations’.
Choi is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence.
Park was originally sentenced to more than 30 years in prison before the Supreme Court sent her cases to a lower court in 2019.
The Seoul High Court in 2018 sentenced her to 25 years in prison after jointly investigating bribery, extortion, abuse of power and other convictions.
But in October 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the Seoul Supreme Court to handle Park’s bribery charge separately from other charges, based on a law it requires for cases involving a president or other elected officials, even when the alleged crimes committed together.
The Supreme Court gave Park a five-year term in July on the charges of the spy fund, but the Supreme Court also ordered a retrial on the case in November and ordered the lower court to file a complaint of loss of state funds. to apply more widely. .
Prosecutors have appealed after the Seoul Supreme Court handed over a 20-year term to Park in July last year after the two cases were merged.
If Park serves her sentence in full, she will be released in 2039 at the age of 20.