New conviction for corruption, of two and a half years in prison, for the Samsung heir

Lee Jae-yong attends the media upon his arrival at the Seoul court on Monday, DPA via Europa Press / Europa Press

A Seoul court sentenced the heir to the Samsung empire, Lee Jae-yong, to two and a half years in prison on Monday in the retrial to which he has been subjected for his role in the corruption scheme of former President Park Geun-hye.

The Seoul High Court decided to impose this penalty on Lee for bribing Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the former president, within a wide network of favors that scandalized the country and led to Park's removal from power and imprisonment.

Lee, who was present at the verdict, was guarded from the court to a detention center, to which he will return less than three years after being released when his previous sentence was overturned, according to the local agency Yonhap.

Lee had been sentenced to five years in prison in August 2017 for bribes aimed at obtaining favorable treatment from authorities, embezzling funds, hiding assets abroad and committing perjury.

However, in February 2018 an appeals court reduced his sentence and allowed him to leave prison, although his case took a new turn in August 2019, when a higher court decided to impose new charges on him.

The prosecution had requested nine years in prison for the Samsung heir in the retrial, in order to set an example in this high-profile case related to the notorious plot.

The businessman is also being tried by another Seoul court, on charges of accounting fraud and price manipulation of stock assets allegedly committed during the controversial merger of two group companies in 2015.

Several irregularities are attributed to that 2015 merger, including an alleged crime of accounting fraud aimed at consolidating Lee's leadership shortly after his father, group president Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart attack that had left him in a coma until his death last October.