hankyoreh

Former President Park Geun-hye enters the courtroom in the Seoul Central District Court to continue her trial on bribery and corruption charges on Aug. 25. (Photo pool)

On Aug. 25, when the verdict was announced in first trial of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, it was found that the financial support provided for the equestrian career of Choi Soon-sil’s daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, and for the Korea Winter Sports Elite Center were bribes. Following this, it is expected that former President Park Geun-hye, the person who received the bribes in question, will have a hard time escaping a severe sentence. The trials are currently being carried out separately, but given that these charges are two sides of the same coin, the judges assigned to the Park case can’t help but take this judgement into consideration. The punishment for receiving bribes is far more severe than that of giving them.

Of the three original bribery charges made against Lee by the Special Prosecutor, Seoul Central District Court’s 27th criminal division found him guilty in the cases of both the equestrian support and the support for the sports center. “In the case of the support for the horse riding and the sports center, the court finds that there were implied unlawful special favors related to the president, in regard to Samsung’s succession process,” the court stated. The panel’s judgement was that the over 8 billion won (about US $7.1 million) given under the pretext of “confidential” support for the two causes was because the two parties had an implicit understanding that Vice Chairman Lee would succeed Samsung Group Chairman Lee Keun-hee, who was ill at the time, as the head of operations at Samsung.

Considering the regulations of the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes Law, which stipulate that even a bribe of over 100 million won (US $90,000) means facing over 10 years in prison, if Park is found guilty on this count, it will be difficult for her to avoid a severe sentencing.

Moreover, Park is also charged with accepting 7 billion won (US $6.2 million) in bribes from Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin and with requesting 8.9 billion won (US $7.9 million) in bribes from SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won through a third party. Especially in the cases of the Lotte and SK groups, there were direct and concrete pending issues, such as the selection of duty-free shop licensing, at the time when money was changing hands. Given this, many have observed that it won’t be difficult to find that there were strings attached to the money.

But the judgement in the Samsung case can only be viewed as a half-victory for the Special Prosecutor. Lee was the only one of the leaders of 16 conglomerates to be indicted on charges related to the coercion of funds for the Mir and K-Sports foundations, which was the primary cause behind Park’s expulsion by the Constitutional Court in March. Lee was found not guilty on this charge, however.

“Regarding the financial support for the foundations, it cannot be found that [President Park] did any unlawful favors, and there is no definite proof that any happened,” the court stated. It was pointed out that the Special Prosecutor failed to prove that there was some kind of reciprocity, which is the key factor in the case of a bribery charge. This part of the judgement will definitely be a source of nervousness for the prosecution in charge of Park’s indictment.

“Given that the coerced funds for the Mir and K-Sports foundations were the main reason the court decided to expel former President Park back in March, the burden on the Special Prosecutor in mounting a case for the appeals trial and on the prosecution [in charge of Park’s indictment] has greatly increased,” said one former Chief Prosecutor.

But it is worth noting that the court recognized the role of the collusion of Park and Choi Soon-sil and the funds coerced by the Blue House in the forming of the Mir and K-Sports foundations. The court’s finding was that “the president’s level of involvement in using the foundations in the pursuit of personal gain was active and significantly high.” This means that there is a strong possibility that the judicial panel will find Park guilty at least on charges of abuse of authority, the obstruction of the exercising of rights and coercion. Given that the court is different, there is still a chance that the funds collected by the two foundations could be found to be bribes.

By Kang Hee-cheol, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]