By Lee Suh-yoon
A Seoul court sentenced former President Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in prison after finding him guilty on charges of embezzlement and bribery, Friday.
The Seoul Central District Court recognized DAS, an auto-parts company set up under his elder brother's name, as actually being owned by the former president, ending more than a decade of controversy.
It also ordered Lee to return 8.2 billion won ($7.4 million) of illicit gains, and fined him 13 billion won. Last month, prosecutors had demanded a 20-year jail sentence for the former president.
Lee, a former Hyundai executive and the nation's president from 2008 to 2013, was arrested in March on multiple charges, including embezzling 24.6 billion won from DAS from 1994 to 2006, and creating a 24 billion won slush fund.
The money was used for personal expenses and funding Lee's political campaigns, the court said.
The court ruled that Lee was the de-facto owner of DAS, the main point of contention in the case.
“Former President Lee Myung-bak is the de-facto owner of DAS and it is clear that he ordered the creation of the slush fund,” Chief Judge Jung Gye-sun said in a nationally televised verdict, citing testimony and evidence collected from Lee's former aides and DAS employees. “The relevant parties inside DAS considered the firm to be Lee's property and took his opinion into account in key decisions.”
The court recognized 23 billion won as funds Lee embezzled from DAS. He was also found guilty of accepting around 2 billion won in bribes from people he appointed as proportional representation lawmakers or heads of public institutions.
The biggest bribery charge Lee was found guilty of involved Samsung Electronics. In return for pardoning Samsung Group Chairman Lee Gun-hee, Lee had the electronics giant pay for DAS's legal fees in the U.S., which came to 61 billion won.
“Lee owned DAS and embezzled 24.6 billion won over a long time,” Jung said. “While digging into the allegations, more crimes were revealed, so he hugely disappointed people who supported him and the entire nation.”
She said Lee denied all the allegations despite the objective evidence and reliable testimony, claiming the involved figures were framing him. “Considering all this, harsh punishment is inevitable.”
Lee denied all the charges in the lead-up to the verdict, calling the testimony of DAS employees “a plot.” He also refused to show up at the courthouse after hearing it would be nationally televised, citing health problems and the need to uphold the “national image.”
His downfall closely mirrors that of former President Park Geun-hye, a conservative icon like Lee. Park has been sentenced to over three decades in jail on multiple charges of corruption and abuse of power, mainly revolving around her corrupt ties to the nation's conglomerates.