A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said.
Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said.
Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said.
Photo: EPA
“There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added.
Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none.
On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty of stock manipulation and bribery, and increasing her sentence to four years from 20 months.
The heavier sentence came after her acquittal by a lower court on the stock manipulation charge was overturned, with the higher court finding Kim guilty of manipulating the share price of Deutsch Motors, a South Korean car dealer, which it called a “collusive ... trading act constituting market manipulation.”
In the ruling, Shin said that Kim had “failed to acknowledge her culpability and has instead consistently resorted to excuses.”
As a result of her accepting bribes, “public trust in the transparency of state affairs and the fair execution of national policy was undermined,” he added.
The police investigator yesterday said that the judge’s “bereaved family is stricken by the incident” and requests privacy.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS