Ex-chief Of Staff To Park Sentenced To 1 1/2-year Term In 'whitelist' Scandal

Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published October 05, 2018 | 05:44 PM

A Seoul court sentenced Kim Ki-choon, a former chief of staff to ousted President Park Geun-hye, to a 1 1/2-year prison term Friday for pressuring a major business lobby to provide funds to conservative organizations friendly to the Park administration.

SEOUL, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Oct, 2018 ) :A Seoul court sentenced Kim Ki-choon, a former chief of staff to ousted President Park Geun-hye, to a 1 1/2-year prison term Friday for pressuring a major business lobby to provide funds to conservative organizations friendly to the Park administration.

The Seoul Central District Court also sentenced Cho Yoon-sun, a former culture minister and senior political affairs secretary to Park, to one year in prison, to be suspended for two years, for her role in having money funneled to pro-government organizations on the so-called whitelist.

Kim was put in jail following the verdict.

The sentences are in addition to prison terms of four and two years that Kim and Cho were given, respectively, in a separate "blacklist" scandal that centers on allegations that the Park government kept a secret register of artists critical of the administration and disadvantaged them in various ways.

The blacklist case is pending at the Supreme Court.

In the whitelist scandal, prosecutors had demanded four years for Kim and six years for Cho for their roles in pressuring South Korea's largest business lobby, the Federation of Korean Industries, to have member companies provide a total of 6.9 billion won (US$6.1 million) to 33 pro-government organizations between 2014-2016.

"The Constitution considers it important to protect economic freedom and the property of businesses and individuals. The office of the president, which is supposed to uphold this constitutional value, violated the principle of private autonomy by pressuring the FKI to provide funds," the court said.

"For the sake of freedom of thought, the Constitution bans the state from imposing specific political views, but (Kim) divided civic groups into conservatives and liberals, provided support for conservative groups and actively took advantage of them," it said.