SOUTH KOREA PARDONS EX-PRESIDENT JAILED FOR CORRUPTION

Fri 24 December 2021:

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was pardoned on Friday after serving 22 years in prison for corruption.

The government claims that Park’s release will “help bolster national unity” ahead of next March’s presidential election. Park was impeached in 2017 and convicted of abuse of power, coercion, and bribery a year later.

Park was elected president of South Korea for the first time in 2013 and was the country’s first democratically elected leader to be deposed.

According to Yonhap News Agency, she is one of 3,094 prisoners set to be released on New Year’s Eve.

Her release is likely to have a “significant impact” on the presidential election, according to the report, given her support base in Daegu and North Gyeongsang province, a stronghold of the main opposition People Power Party.

President Moon Jae-in’s government has also announced it will exonerate Han Myeong-sook, South Korea’s first woman prime minister who served a two-year prison term from 2015 to 2017 for bribery.

The decisions have been taken as part of efforts to overcome the nationwide crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by moving forward “from the unfortunate history of the past and achieving a grand unity among the people,” the government said.

Justice Minister Park Beom-kye said Park’s deteriorating health was a “very important” factor in the decision to release the 69-year-old.

She remains hospitalized at Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul, where she is expected to remain as her private home was auctioned off.

This is her third time in a hospital this year due to chronic shoulder and lower back pain, having already undergone surgery on her shoulder in 2019.

Park thanked Moon for pardoning her “despite difficulties.”

Park’s 20-year prison sentence was upheld by South Korea’s top court in January of this year.

The majority of the charges against her were related to bribery and coercion, including conspiring with longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil to compel conglomerates like Samsung and retail giant Lotte to donate millions of dollars to Choi’s foundations.

Between May 2013 and September 2016, the former president was found guilty of accepting money from three former heads of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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