Supreme Court orders retrial of Park's NIS case

By Kim Hyun-bin

The Supreme Court ordered a retrial of former President Park Geun-hye on the charge of receiving off-the-books funds from former National Intelligence Service (NIS) chiefs, claiming a lower court wrongfully interpreted the charges on bribery and misusing state funds.

The top court sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial, Thursday, raising questions over an appellate court's decision to drop part of the charges of misusing state funds and reduce Park's sentence by a year to five years.

Park was accused of receiving 3.5 billion won between May 2013 and September 2016 from three NIS chiefs, who allegedly expected her to exercise her influence in their favor in return. Three key presidential secretaries delivered the money from them to Park.

A local court acknowledged Park received secret payments from the NIS heads, but ruled they were not bribes, citing a lack of sufficient evidence that the money was given in return for special favors from Park. But it ruled the money offering and receiving constituted loss of money from state coffers, and sentenced her to six years in jail.

The high court also did not accept the bribery charges, but said only 2.7 billion won of the total money came from the state coffers, deciding the former NIS chiefs were not in finance-related positions ― a prerequisite for charging someone with misusing the state treasury. It said the 2.7 billion won constituted the charges, because an NIS official in charge of the agency's finances was involved in the offering of the money. The appeals court lowered Park's sentence to five years.

However, the Supreme Court said the appellate court's ruling was wrong, because an NIS chief is related to finance as the position is involved in confirming and allocating the agency's budget.

Following the new interpretation, the top court ordered a new hearing for the three former NIS chiefs ― Nam Jae-joon, Lee Byung-kee and Lee Byeong-ho ― and sent the case back to the high court.

The top court confirmed the sentences for the three former secretaries who delivered the money from the NIS heads to Park ― Lee Jae-man, An Bong-geun and Jung Ho-sung ― giving them jail sentences of 18 months in jail, 30 months and 18 months suspended for three years.

In the retrial, it is highly likely that Park's punishment will be increased. She was already given two years in jail for Election Law violations, which was confirmed at the top court. For a separate trial about her corruption scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil, an appeals court sentenced her to 25 years in prison and the case is also under retrial.

The former president has been imprisoned at Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, since 2017 after being ousted following the scandal.