Heir to Samsung company freed by appeals court
SEOUL — Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong was freed Monday after a South Korean appeals court gave him a 2½-year suspended jail sentence for corruption in a scandal that toppled the country’s president.
The Seoul High Court softened the original ruling against Lee, rejecting most of the bribery charges leveled against him by prosecutors who sought a 12-year prison term.
While the ruling clears the way for the Samsung vice chairman to resume his role at the helm of the industrial giant founded by his grandfather after a year in prison, he faces a host of challenges outside prison. Chief among them will be winning trust that he is capable of running South Korea’s biggest company, and assuaging public anger among those who viewed the court’s surprise decision as a setback in the war on corruption.
“The past year was a precious time for personal reflection,” Lee told reporters waiting outside the gates of a detention center in Seoul.
Lee’s first stop from the prison was a hospital where his father has been treated since suffering a heart attack in 2014.
Lee was charged with offering $38 million in bribes to former President Park Geunhye and her confidant Choi Soon-sil, embezzling Samsung funds, hiding assets overseas, concealing proceeds from criminal activities and perjury.
The appeals court said Lee was unable to reject the thenpresident’s request to financially support her confidante and was coerced into making the payments. The court still found Lee guilty of giving 3.6 billion won ($3.3 million) in bribes for equestrian training of Choi’s daughter and of embezzling the money from Samsung funds.
Lee’s lawyer, Lee Injae, said the Samsung vice chairman still plans to appeal his conviction. Prosecutors also were expected to appeal the court’s ruling, making it almost certain the case will go to the Supreme Court.
Lee, 49 and the only son of Samsung’s ailing chairman, was given a five-year prison term in August on bribery and other charges linked to the scandal that took down the former president.
Many South Koreans were expecting a tough stance from the appeals court and took to social media and online news portals to vent their anger at the ruling and the judge who issued the verdict.
The earlier ruling against Lee was seen as a departure from the previous court cases that had been criticized for being too soft toward whitecollar crime.