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January 19, 2021

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Samsung scion Lee sent back to prison

BILLIONAIRE Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong was sent back to prison yesterday after a South Korean court handed him a two-and-half-year sentence for his involvement in a 2016 corruption scandal that spurred massive protests and ousted South Korea’s then-president.

In a much-anticipated retrial, the Seoul High Court found Lee guilty of bribing then-President Park Geun-hye and her close confidante to win government support for a 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates. The deal helped strengthen his control over the country’s largest business group.

Lee’s lawyers had portrayed him as a victim of presidential power abuse and described the 2015 deal as part of “normal business activity.”

Wearing a mask and black suit and tie, Lee was taken into custody following the ruling. He didn’t answer questions by reporters upon his arrival at the court.

Injae Lee, an attorney who leads Lee Jae-yong’s defense team, expressed regret over the court’s decision, saying that the “essence of the case is that a former president abused power to infringe upon the freedom and property rights of a private company.”

He didn’t say whether there would be an appeal.

Lee Jae-yong helms the Samsung group in his capacity as vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s largest makers of computer chips and smartphones. In September last year, prosecutors separately indicted Lee on charges of stock price manipulation, breach of trust and auditing violations related to the 2015 merger.

It isn’t immediately clear what his prison term would mean for Samsung. Samsung didn’t show much signs of trouble during the previous time Lee spent in jail in 2017 and 2018. Samsung Electronics said earlier this month that its operating profit for the last quarter likely rose by 26 percent from the same period a year earlier to 9 trillion won (US$8.1 billion).

Lee, 52, was originally sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for offering 8.6 billion won in bribes to Park and her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. But he was freed after 11 months in February 2018 after the Seoul High Court reduced his term to 2 1/2 years and suspended his sentence.




 

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