Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong sentenced to 5 years in jail for corruption

After more 4 months of courtroom dates and testimonies from 59 witnesses spanning the entire gamut of South Korean professional society, federal prosecutors in Due south Korea have successfully convicted Samsung heir apparent Lee Jae-yong.

On Friday, a lower courtroom judge sentenced the Samsung Electronics vice chairman to five years in prison for bribing the country's erstwhile president, Park Geun-hye. Lee was also found guilty of embezzlement, hiding assets aboard, concealing criminal profits and perjury.

In the aforementioned instance, four other Samsung executives were constitute guilty of a number of the same charges and sentenced to like jail terms.

While Lee was sentenced to a jail term shorter than the 12 years prosecutors had sought, the guilty verdict is being seen as a landmark moment in the country'south contempo move away from its chaebol culture.

The guilty verdict is being seen every bit a landmark moment in the state's recent movement abroad from its chaebol culture.

In South Korea, chaebols, multi-national conglomerates that are family-run, dominate almost every facet of the land'southward political and economic life. In 2012, Samsung's revenues accounted for twenty pct of the state'southward national GDP.

The scandal involving President Park Guen-hye showed just how decadent the human relationship between politics and business concern had become.

A spokesperson for Moon Jae-in, South korea's current president, said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that the verdict "will be a take a chance to break the close human relationship between political and business concern circles that has been a stumbling block to our club's progress."

Of course, this saga is far from done. Immediately after the verdict was handed downwards, Lee's lawyers said they would appeal it.

"As a legal professional, I cannot possibly accept any part of the lower courtroom's guilty verdicts, in terms of interpretation of law and finding of facts," said Wu-cheol Song, Lee'south lead defence force chaser, in a argument issued to MobileSyrup. "We volition entreatment immediately I am confident that the appeals court will definitely find the defendants not guilty on all counts."

In the meantime, Lee'due south guilty verdict does leave Samsung in a precarious position. During the trial, Lee testified that he was rarely involved in decisions involving the broader Samsung empire. However, since his father, Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart assail, it's been generally assumed that Jae-yong had been calling the shots at Samsung.

[source]The Wall Street Journal[/source]