Samsung chief Lee handed fresh 30-month prison term for bribery
Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, known as Jay Y. Lee in western media, has been handed a new 2.5-year jail sentence for bribing a former South Korean official.
Seoul High Court on Monday convicted Lee of bribing an associate of South Korea’s former president Park Geun-hye. He was immediately taken into custody.
In a huge scandal that unfolded in 2016, the disgraced South Korean president was convicted of charges including illegally receiving funds from the country's spy agency, bribery, coercion and abuse of power. She was sentenced to a total of 32 years in prison, and ordered to pay $17 million in fines.
Park's scandal entangled Lee, who is the heir to the South Korean tech giant, Samsung Group.
He was handed five years in 2017 in connection to the far-reaching scandal, which caused public outrage and mass protests across the country.
Lee's initial five-year sentence was reduced and suspended on appeal, and he was released in 2018 after serving just one year of his prison sentence.
The Seoul High Court, however, found Lee guilty of new charges .
The court convicted Lee for bribery, embezzlement and concealment of criminal proceeds worth about $7.8 million.
Lee, however, maintained that there had been no wrongdoings on his part.
Lee's lawyers have blamed the former president for the charges raised against Park.
“The nature of this case is the former president’s abuse of power violating corporate freedom and property rights. Given that nature, the court’s decision is regrettable,” Lee’s lawyer, Lee In-jae, told reporters.
Lee, who has already served one year in detention, is expected to serve only 18 months of his sentence.
The High Court pointed out that Monday’s sentence could be appealed at the Supreme Court; however, legal experts believe that since the Supreme Court reviewed the case once before, the chances of changing the sentence were very low.
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