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S Korea grants former Daewoo chief amnesty

Former Daewoo Group chairman Kim Woo-choong, center, is escorted by investigation officers as he is transferred to a detention house from the prosecutor's office in Seoul in June 2005. Kim was pardoned yesterday under an amnesty. PHOTO: AFP

South Korea announced a New Year's Eve amnesty yesterday for 75 politicians and businessmen, including the former chairman of collapsed conglomerate Daewoo Group.

Kim Woo-choong, who was sentenced last year to eight and a half years in prison for embezzlement and accounting fraud, was pardoned under the presidential amnesty and was to be released from prison. Others received reduced sentences or had suspended rights restored.

Daewoo collapsed under massive debt following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, when South Korea's government was forced to accept a US$58 billion International Monetary Fund bailout.

Parts of Daewoo were broken up and sold, with Detroit-based General Motors Corp acquiring a major stake in Daewoo Motor to create GM Daewoo in 2002.

The Justice Ministry said the pardons would take effect today.

Also among those pardoned were Lim Dong-won and Shin Gunn, the two former chiefs of the country's spy agency. The two were convicted in 2006 of masterminding the illegal tapping of the mobile phones of about 1,800 of South Korea's leading figures.

Each received a three-year prison term, suspended for four years.

The eavesdropping scandal, which rocked South Korea in 2005, erupted after revelations of a tapped phone conversation between the head of a leading newspaper and a top Samsung Group executive about providing illicit campaign funds to candidates in the 1997 presidential race.
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