S.Korea's top court orders review of ruling on ousted president Park's bribery case

SEOUL - South Korea's top court on Thursday ordered the review of the appellate court's rulings on the bribery case of impeached and ousted President Park Geun-hye, involving Park's longtime friend Choi Soon-sil and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

The Supreme Court returned the case to the appeals court, saying the bribery case, involving Park, should be ruled separately from other charges, including abuse of power and coercion, under the election law.

The separate rulings raise a possibility for the impeached president to face a heavier punishment.

Park was sentenced to 25 years in prison and fined 20 billion won (17 million US dollars) in August last year by an appeals court, which raised the lower court's sentence of the 24-year imprisonment.

The appeals court condemned Choi, Park's decades-long confidante, to 20 years in jail, upholding the district court's ruling.

The 13-justice bench also ordered the appellate court to review the case of Lee, an heir apparent of Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest family-controlled conglomerate.

The top court convicted the Samsung heir of more bribery charges, increasing the acknowledged amount of bribes Lee offered to Park and Choi from 3.6 billion won (three million US dollars) to five billion won (4.1 million US dollars).

The increased amount of bribe raises a possibility for Lee to be jailed as the jail term of three years or longer bans the suspended sentence. By law, offering at least five billion won (4.1 million US dollars) in bribery faces at least five years in prison.

Lee was sentenced by a district court in August 2017 to five years in prison over bribery, but he was released from prison in February 2018 as the appellate court reduced his sentence to two and a half years in prison with a stay of execution for four years.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Samsung heir offered bribes in return for illicit favors relevant to the inheritance of management control over Samsung Group from his father. Chairman Lee Kun-hee who has been hospitalized for more than five years.

The country's national pension fund voted in favor of the 2015 merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, the two Samsung units merged to create Samsung's de-facto holding company. The merger helped Lee strengthen his management control over the entire conglomerate.

The corruption scandal disclosed the country's inveterate collusive ties between politicians and businessmen, under which large conglomerates grew rapidly but distorted order of the market economy, eventually causing loss to the entire economy.

All the defendants did not appear in court for the rulings. Park refused to attend any court hearings since October 2017, calling the trial a political revenge.

Park was impeached by lawmakers in December 2016. The Constitutional Court upheld the parliament's decision in March 2017, making her the first South Korean leader to be impeached by the National Assembly.