A Seoul court ruled that the son of the former dictator Chun Doo-hwan should pay the fines unpaid by his father to the government through his company assets, legal sources said Wednesday.
It marks the first victory for the government in a lawsuit against the 85-year-old ex-president since the prosecution launched a special investigation team in 2013 to collect the unpaid fines.
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| Chun Doo-hwan (Yonhap) |
The Seoul Central District Court ordered the publishing company Sigongsa, founded in 1989 and run by Chun’s eldest son Jae-kook, to pay 5.7 billion won ($4.7 million) for the six-year period on behalf of his father.
Jae-kook owns slightly more than 50 percent of shares in the publishing company that posted revenue of 1.9 billion won in 2014.
According to the verdict, the company will have to pay 700 million to 1.5 billion won every year from 2016 to 2021 to the state. If the money is not paid in time, the amount is set to increase by 5 to 15 percent.
The ruling came after prosecutors lodged a suit against Jae-kook to directly collect 6.3 billion won from the sale of the Sigongsa-owned building. The property was auctioned off for an estimated 11.6 billion won.
Chun, who rose to power in a military coup in 1979, was convicted for taking bribes from Korean companies and for his role in the 1980 Gwangju uprising. His crackdown in the southwestern city left about 200 pro-democracy protestors dead.
In 1997, Chun was ordered to return to the state some 220 billion won he had accumulated through kickbacks while in office from 1980 to 1988. He took the bribes in return for giving favors to companies.
He refused to pay the penalties at first, claiming that he was broke, despite news reports of his family leading a life of luxury here and in the U.S.. Chun and his family eventually promised to voluntarily pay the money by September 2013 in the face of public criticism.
As Chun’s statute of limitation was set to expire in October 2013, the National Assembly passed a bill to extend it to 2020. The bill allowed authorities collect the fine from Chun’s family members if the asset was proven to have originated from his illegally earned funds.
The prosecution has searched Chun and his family’s residences and seized artwork, real estate and valuables since it opened the investigation in 2013. As of 2014, Chun and his family have paid only 51.4 percent of the fines, or 113 billion won.
Last November, the U.S. government also returned more than $1.1 million to South Korea that it had forfeited from Chun and his family in the country. The U.S. froze the money from the sale of their residence in California and investment bonds.
The prosecution filed another suit against Jae-gook’s firm Libro last year, to collect an estimated 2.5 billion won. Several items of real estate were put up for auction and the proceeds will be transferred to the state.
By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)
