hankyoreh

After over eight months of court proceedings, prosecutors on Tuesday sought a six-year jail term for Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo on embezzlement and breach of trust charges related to bribery allegations involving the country's largest automaker.

"We seek this penalty to add transparency to this Korean company's management and to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents," a prosecutor said, also citing the gravity of the charges and their adverse impact on the Korean economy. The sentencing is set for Feb. 5.

The 68-year-old chairman was indicted in May on charges of misappropriating company funds worth 90 billion won (US$96 million) and causing the losses of more than 210 billion won to key affiliates of the conglomerate in breach of trust between 2000 and 2006.

Hyundai Motor Group, which controls about 70 percent of the domestic auto market, is South Korea's second-largest conglomerate and the sixth-largest automaker in the world.

"I'm very sorry for the trouble I have caused and sincerely repent," Chung said during the trial. "Our company is now in big trouble. If you give me a chance, I will repay the people by developing Hyundai Motor into the world's fifth-largest automaker."

Hyundai Motor aims to achieve the goal by 2010. If Chung is imprisoned, it may hinder the goal as well as the automaker's overseas expansion. The firm delayed the construction of factories in the Czech Republic and the United States after the arrest of Chung and other executives.

Seoul, Jan. 16 (Yonhap News)