South Korea’s former president Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 24 years in prison today after being found guilty of multiple counts of abuse of power, bribery and coercion.
Park, 66, was alleged to have colluded with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, and a former presidential aide, in pressuring businesses to donate to two foundations set up to back her policy initiatives.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
She was also accused of soliciting bribes from the head of the Samsung Group for government favours.
Handing down the sentence at Seoul Central District Court, the judge said that Park had “abused the power which was given to her by the citizens”. The former president, South Korea’s first female leader, was also fined 18bn won (£12m).
The daughter of dictator Park Chung-hee - assassinated in 1979 - Park held office from 2013 until March 2017, when she was stripped of her powers after the country’s Constitutional Court upheld a parliamentary vote to impeach her. She was arrested weeks later.
Park, who has been held at a detention centre since her arrest, was not present in court for today’s verdict. She has one week to appeal the decision.
The scandal “exposed what has long been widely suspected in South Korea: the entangled web of government and sprawling business conglomerates that dominate the country’s economy”, say The Guardian. “While personally damaging to South Korea’s first female leader, the corruption scandal has also resulted in a major blow to conservatives in the following election.”
The liberal Democratic Party’s Moon Jae-in swept to power in the presidential election last May, with 41% of the vote, while the candidate from Park’s Liberty Korea Party lagged behind with 24%.
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
Movies to watch in Februarythe week recommends Time travelers, multiverse hoppers and an Iraqi parable highlight this month’s offerings during the deep of winter
-
ICE’s facial scanning is the tip of the surveillance icebergIN THE SPOTLIGHT Federal troops are increasingly turning to high-tech tracking tools that push the boundaries of personal privacy
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
