Ex-leader Lee gets 15 years for corruption

SEOUL: Former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday in a corruption case that has badly tainted his status as the country’s first leader with a business background who once symbolised the country’s economic rise.

Lee’s conviction came six months after his successor and fellow conservative Park Geun-hye was convicted in a separate corruption scandal that triggered the country’s greatest political turmoil in decades. She is serving a 33-year prison term. The back-to-back scandals severely wounded conservatives in South Korea and deepened a national divide.

Few past South Korean leaders are free from corruption scandals. Before Lee and Park, former liberal President Roh Moohyun jumped to his death in 2009 amid a high-profile corruption investigation of his family. His liberal predecessor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung was forced to apologise at the close of his term after all three of his sons were arrested or embroiled in scandals.

Yesterday, the Seoul Central District Court convicted Lee of embezzling 24.6 billion won (716 million baht) from a company he owned called DAS; taking bribes from Samsung, one of his spy chiefs, a former lawmaker and a financial figure; and causing losses to state coffers. The court fined Lee 13 billion won. It said Lee committed those crimes before and during his presidency, from 2008 to 2013.

The court said Lee took 6.1 billion won from Samsung in bribes that were used in legal expenses for DAS. That money led to a 2009 government pardon of Samsung’s convicted chairman, Lee Kun-hee, the court verdict said. The Samsung chief had been earlier fined and sentenced to a suspended three-year prison term in connection with losses at a Samsung affiliate and tax evasion.

Lee and prosecutors have one week to appeal, according to the court.