Daewoo Group founder Kim Woo-Choong was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for fraud and embezzlement relating to the collapse of the firm under heavy debts, court officials said.
The Seoul Central District Court said Kim, aged 69 and in poor health, was also ordered to repay 21,4-trillion won ($22,5-billion dollars) in restitution, along with a fine of 10-million won.
Kim was convicted of fraudulent accounting, embezzling company funds and illegal transmission of funds abroad but the court acquitted him of bribing government officials.
The former tycoon was arrested and indicted in June last year after returning from overseas where he had lived in exile for six years in a bid to escape from justice.
His doctors said he was too ill to face trial and two months after his return he underwent coronary bypass surgery and had follow-up procedures in January this year.
Kim’s corporate empire collapsed in 1999 under debts estimated at $80-billion in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
He was accused of ordering his executives to inflate the group’s assets between 1997 and 1998 to acquire banks loans and of smuggling $3,2-billion overseas.
Experts said prosecutors who asked for a 15-year jail term, could have sought a life sentence but were considering Kim’s poor health and his contribution to South Korea’s economic success.
A self-made man, Kim once epitomised South Korea’s rags-to-riches rise from poverty to one of the world’s major industrial economies. – AFP