South Korea Grants Amnesty to Former Daewoo Chairman

By Juliana Chan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, South Korea – Kim Woo-choong, 71, the founder and former chairman of the collapsed conglomerate Daewoo Group, was pardoned Monday under a traditional New Year amnesty. Mr. Kim was one of 75 people to receive a presidential pardon. Others, including businessmen and six death-row inmates, received reduced sentences or had suspended rights restored.

Daewoo, which was once the country’s second largest conglomerate, collapsed in the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis with over $80 billion in debt and leaving the South Korean government to spend over $32 billion to rescue its component companies. Mr. Kim fled the country in 1999 and has been accused of “ordering his executives to inflate the group’s assets between 1997 and 1998 to obtain bank loans.” He returned in 2005 from Vietnam “to make peace with his past.” He was arrested soon after landing.

Mr. Kim was convicted of accounting fraud that involved borrowing illegal loans from banks, as well as smuggling funds overseas. He was sentenced to prison for eight and a half years in 2006 for embezzlement and accounting fraud. One month later, however, the court suspended the sentence because of Mr. Kim’s health issues.

The justice ministry said Monday’s presidential amnesty pardoned 21 businessmen, two former spy chiefs convicted of illegal wiretapping of political and business leaders, and six death-row inmates who had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. South Korea has placed a moratorium on executions since the last hangings on December 30, 1997.

For more information, please see:

AFP – SKorea pardons tycoon over huge financial collapse: ministry – 31 December 2007

BBC News – South Korea pardons Daewoo boss – 31 December 2007

Financial Times – Korea pardons Daewoo fraudster – 1 January 2008

Author: Impunity Watch Archive