South Korea’s Supreme Court today held a final trial on the corruption and bribery case of former President Lee Myung-bak and upheld the second-instance verdict, sentenced to 17 years in prison, a fine of 13 billion won, and 5.78 billion won of criminal proceeds.
According to the Ap , the court of second instance disqualified Lee Myung-bak from bail and arrested him in court.
Lee Myung-bak appealed against the verdict, the Supreme Court rejected this, and Lee Myung-bak will serve his sentence in prison.
Lee Myung-bak was the 17th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013 and was the former president of Park Geun-hye. At the end of 2017, South Korean prosecutors began investigating Lee Myung-bak’s alleged abuse of power during his tenure, and then began investigating Lee’s privately established secret funds.
In February 2018, Lee Myung-bak was arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes, abuse of power, and embezzlement of public funds. South Korean prosecutors subsequently prosecuted Lee Myung-bak on 16 counts of bribery, corruption, tax evasion, and abuse of power on April 9, 2018.
In October 2018, the court of first instance sentenced Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in prison and fined 13 billion won and recovered 8.2 billion won of criminal proceeds. Lee Myung-bak refused to accept the sentence and filed an appeal. In the second instance, Lee Myung-bak was accused by the prosecutors of embezzling the 34.9 billion won of the DAS company he actually controlled, and accepted a total of 16.3 billion won in bribes including the 11.9 billion litigation fees that Samsung paid for DAS.