South Korea's ex-president gets eight more years in jail

(Left) Park Geun-hye. Pic/AP

Disgraced former South Korean president Park Geun-hye was convicted of charges including illegally receiving funds from the country's spy agency yesterday and given eight more years in prison, on top of her current term. Park, the South's first female president, was impeached last year after huge street protests over a sprawling scandal, and was jailed for 24 years for corruption and abuse of power in April.

Yesterday's penalty - issued in her absence after she refused to attend the Seoul Central District Court - came after a separate trial for pocketing money from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and improperly intervening in 2016 in the selection of her ruling party's parliamentary candidates.

The Seoul Central District Court gave Park six years for taking 3.3 billion won (R19.9 crore) from the spy agency, and two years for the electoral offence. The penalties apply consecutively, meaning the 66-year-old now faces a total of 32 years in prison. "Through this crime, the accused incurred a considerable amount of loss to the state treasury," said senior judge Seong Chang-ho.

32 yrs
No. of years Park has to spend time in prison

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever