President of the Republic of Korea Yun Sok Yul pardoned the previously convicted ex-president of the country Lee Mön Buck, the ex-governor of the province of South Koonsan Kim Kyongo and some other politicians, Interfax reports with reference to Renhap.
The decisions of pardon will enter into force on December 28th.
The president informed this at a government meeting and expressed the hope that the decisions made will contribute to the unification of the nation.
Lee Mön Buck was serving a 17-year term in prison for corruption, pardon reduced his period of imprisonment for 15 years and canceled the obligation to pay the balance of fines totaling 8.2 billion won ($ 6.48 million). It was expected that the ex-president would be pardoned in August 2022, but at the last minute he was excluded from the list for political reasons related to the low rating of the approval of the young Sok Yolya at that time.
Lee was the president of South Korea from 2008 to the beginning of 2013, and before that he was the mayor of Seoul and the general director of the construction company Hyundai Engineering and Construction.
Kim Kyung Su, close to the former President Moon Jae, was pardoned 5 months before the end of his prison term. He is still forbidden to run for public posts until December 2027.
Among the pardoned are the former presidential secretaries accused of mass corruption scandal, who led to the impeachment of former president Pak Kyn Hee in 2017. In particular, the head of state pardoned the head of the administration of Pak Kyn Hye – Kim Guy Chon, former Minister of Finance Tsoi Gene Khan, directors of the National Intelligence Service to us Jae Jung, Lee Ben Ki and Lee Ben Ho, as well as the former senior secretary of the president for political issues, Jung Ben Hona.
In December 2021, ex-president Park Kyn He, sentenced to 22 years in prison for corruption, was pardoned in South Korea. In August 2021, the heir to Samsung Electronics was pardoned Lee Zhe Yon.
In total, within the framework of recent presidential amnesties in the country, 1,373 people were pardoned.