Park Geun-hye: South Korea’s top court upholds 20-year prison sentence for former leader
Park’s 2018 sentence was lowered to twenty years final July following a retrial. Prosecutors appealed that sentence and requested a heavier penalty, however on Thursday, South Korea’s Supreme Courtroom upheld Park’s 20-year jail time period, in keeping with a information launch from the court docket.
The Supreme Courtroom is South Korea’s highest court docket, which means that Thursday’s determination is anticipated to be the tip of Park’s authorized avenues to attraction her sentence.
Park must serve 22 years behind bars — she faces an extra two-year jail time period for a 2018 conviction for meddling within the nomination of candidates for Saenuri Occasion, a conservative political social gathering beforehand led by her.
“That is the conclusion of a state corruption affair which follows the folks’s candlelight revolution, impeachment by the Meeting, and a judicial ruling. It’s a manifestation of our democratic republic’s constitutional spirit and signifies development and maturity of Korean democracy,” South Korea’s presidential Blue Home stated in an announcement Thursday. “We should be sure that to take this unlucky occasion — the imprisonment of the previous President — as a historic lesson and keep away from repeating it.”
South Korea corruption scandal
The daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, Park Geun-hye grew to become South Korea’s first feminine President when she got here to energy in 2013.
That vote got here after hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets over a interval of a number of months to demand Park’s ouster, after revelations emerged in regards to the undue affect wielded by her adviser and confidant, Choi Quickly-sil, the daughter of a cult chief.
CNN’s Paula Hancocks, Yoonjung Web optimization and James Griffiths contributed to this report.