Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been pardoned after serving time in jail for corruption.
Park’s pardon, announced on Friday by the country’s Justice Ministry, is “aimed at strengthening national unity in the midst of challenges imposed by the coronavirus outbreak.”
After being deposed from office due to a corruption scandal that sparked months of demonstrations, Park Geun-hye was arrested and sentenced to jail in 2017.
Following the ministry’s announcement, Justice Minister Park Beom-kye revealed to reporters that she was on a list of those getting special amnesty and that she was pardoned from “a standpoint of national unity.”
The Justice Minister was quoted as saying that the former president’s pardon was discussed during a two-day meeting of the ministry’s amnesty review committee earlier this week, adding that the health factor “was a very important criterion” in the amnesty decision.
Park, the daughter of late authoritarian President Park Chung-hee, was South Korea’s first female president.
The 69-year-old was serving a 20-year prison sentence for bribery and abuse of power, with another two years after that for election law violations.
The corruption scandal had exposed shady links between big businesses and politics in South Korea, with Park and her close friend Choi Soon-sil accused of taking bribes from conglomerates, including Samsung Electronics, in exchange for preferential treatment.
Park had pleaded her innocence to the charges, saying she never accepted the money, claiming that the charges were fabricated as part of political revenge by a conservative government against her administration.
Park’s predecessor Lee Myung-bak, who is also imprisoned, was not pardoned. He is serving a 17-year prison sentence over embezzlement and bribery convictions.
ALSO READ
