S. Korean ex-president off to jail for graft
A car transporting South Korea’s former president Lee Myung-bak leaves for prison at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul on Monday.
Former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak headed to prison on Monday after a Seoul court upheld a 17-year term on corruption charges.
It is effectively a life sentence: unless he is pardoned or paroled, the 78-year-old will not leave jail until 2036, when he would be 95.
He left his residence in Seoul in a black car, passing a throng of journalists and former aides, but did not say anything and was not visible through the vehicle’s darkened windows.
Lee was taken to the Seoul Central District Prosecution’s Office for registration before being transferred to a prison in the east of the capital.
His return to jail means all four of South Korea’s living former presidents are either behind bars or have served jail terms — often as a result of investigations begun under successors who are political rivals.
The Supreme Court last week upheld Lee’s conviction for embezzling 25.2 billion won (US$22 million) and accepting bribes totaling 9.4 billion won, and the 17-year sentence.
Lee was first convicted in late 2018 and originally jailed for 15 years. He served nearly a year before an appeals court increased his penalty but granted him bail pending a further appeal to the nation’s highest court.
A self-made man who was appointed head of a major construction firm at 35 before entering politics, Lee was president from 2008 to 2013. He will serve his time in a 13-square-meter cell normally occupied by six or seven inmates.
