By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn was sentenced to 18 months in jail for his attack on bar workers who had injured his son in a brawl.
It is the first time for a Korean tycoon to be given a prison term for an act of violence.
A Seoul court handed down the 18-month prison term to Kim, 55, who was indicted on six charges including organizing a mob attack, injuring people with weapons, abduction and impeding a police investigation.
Kim's second son was injured in a scuffle with workers from a central Seoul bar at karaoke rooms in southern Seoul on March 8. The next day, the senior Kim mobilized his bodyguards and gangsters to kidnap the bar employees, take them to a warehouse on Mount Cheonggye and beat them up.
``Kim, by taking advantage of his status as a conglomerate chairman, committed `organized' violence. He gave inconsistent testimony by denying the attack at the beginning of the probe, admitting some of the charges before his arrest, and denying the charge of using weapons at court hearings,'' the court said in its ruling.
``When attacked, people should react according to commonsense and the law, such as filing for a compensation suit, but Kim did not do so,'' it said.
Although Kim and the victims reached a deal and Kim's absence from his office may cause damage to the company, a jail term is inevitable considering the seriousness of the crime, because Kim and his men beat the defenseless victims at a remote warehouse at night, the court said.
The court also recognized Kim's use of a steel pipe and an electric shock device. But it did not acknowledge that Kim directly ordered the mobilization of gangsters, indicating that officials at Hanwha's secretaries' office contacted them.
The court handed down a 10-month jail term suspended for two years to one of Kim's bodyguards, considering he followed Kim's orders.
In the meantime, the prosecution sought a warrant to detain a gang leader, identified as Oh, for his involvement in the attack. He is suspected of mobilizing gangsters following directions from a Hanwha auditor, as well as trying to bribe police officers to cover up the case.
Oh fled to Canada on April 27, three days after the case was reported in the media.