Prison term upheld for S. Korean ex-leader

SEOUL－South Korea's Supreme Court upheld a 20-year prison sentence for former president Park Geun-hye on Thursday, in the final ruling over the corruption scandal that brought her down.

The decision brought to an end an extended legal process that involved multiple trials and appeals, including a previous top court hearing.

The country's first female president was impeached in 2017 after huge street protests.

She was convicted the following year of bribery and abuse of power and jailed for 30 years. A series of appeals, a retrial and further appeals followed which reduced her sentence to 20 years.

On Thursday, the case went for a second time before the Supreme Court, which accepted and confirmed the 20-year sentence.

The court also upheld fines and forfeits totaling 21.5 billion won ($19.5 million).

Park has been boycotting the proceedings, saying they are biased against her, and was not present in court on Thursday.

In addition, she has separately been sentenced to two years in prison－to run consecutively－for election law violations.

She now faces a total of 22 years behind bars and would be in her 80s by the time her sentence is up.

Park was convicted of colluding with her longtime confidant, Choi Soon-sil, to take millions of dollars in bribes and extortion money from some of the country's largest business groups, including Samsung, while she was in office from 2013 to 2016.

She was also indicted on charges of illegally accepting monthly funds from her spy chiefs that were diverted out of the agency's budget.

Following weekslong protests by millions, Park was impeached by lawmakers in December 2016 and officially removed from office in March 2017 after the Constitutional Court upheld her removal from office.

Choi is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence.

Park's successor Moon Jae-in was swept to power by the public backlash against her and her conservative party.

Thursday's ruling completes the trial process and makes Park legally eligible for a pardon herself.

Lee Nak-yon, the leader of President Moon's Democratic Party, said earlier this month that he "plans to suggest" pardoning Park and Lee Myung-bak, another former president currently serving a jail term, but faced an immediate backlash from politicians on both sides of the aisle.

The presidential Blue House said on Thursday it was "not appropriate" to discuss pardons immediately after the final ruling.

It was a "historical lesson" that a former president had committed acts that meant she had to serve a prison sentence. "This should never happen again."

It was not immediately clear how Thursday's ruling would affect the legal saga of billionaire Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong.

The 52-year-old vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics is facing a ruling at the Seoul High Court next week in a retrial over charges that he bribed Park and Choi to win government support for a 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates that helped strengthen his control over the country's largest business group.

Agencies Via Xinhua