President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration in South Korea said on Tuesday that it would pardon former president Lee Myung-bak, who was given a 17-year prison term for a variety of corruption offences.
Lee will be among the 1,373 criminals who receive pardons on Wednesday, says a statement from the Justice Ministry. It declared that as part of its attempts to foster national unity, it has chosen to involve some lawmakers, including Lee.
Due to health issues, Lee, 81, was briefly let out of prison in June.
Before and during his presidential era from 2008 to 2013, the CEO-turned-conservative hero had been found guilty of accepting bribes from major corporations like Samsung, embezzling money from a firm he owned, and other corruption-related offences.
He served as South Korea’s first president with a background in business and once stood for the nation’s economic development. Midway through the 1960s, he started his business career as an entry-level employee at Hyundai Group’s construction division. From there, he worked his way up to become CEO of 10 Hyundai Group companies and oversaw the company’s quick ascent as South Korea’s economy was emerging from the ashes of the 1950–53 Korean War.
After Lee’s successor and fellow conservative Park Geun-hye was removed from office and imprisoned as a result of a separate corruption scandal involving the 2016–17 period, Lee’s case emerged. The back-to-back scandals in South Korea severely damaged conservatives and widened the country’s rift.
When Yoon’s liberal predecessor Moon Jae-in led South Korea in December 2021, Park, who was completing a lengthy jail sentence, was pardoned.
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