The Supreme Court sentenced a son of former President Chun Doo-hwan Thursday to three years in prison with a four-year stay of execution for tax evasion in a land deal.
Upholding a lower court ruling, the highest court handed down the ruling to Chun Jae-yong, the second son of the former president, for colluding with his uncle to dodge 2.7 billion won ($2.3 million) in transfer taxes in selling a plot of land in Osan, Gyeonggi Province, 55 kilometers south of Seoul, in December 2006.
The court also ordered the younger Chun to pay a 4 billion-won fine.
Lee Chang-seok, the uncle, was given a suspended prison term of 2 1/2 years, as well as a 4 billion-won fine, for colluding with his nephew.
The prosecution’s probe into Chun’s family was part of government efforts to reclaim the fortune of the former president who was convicted of taking bribes while in office in the 1980s.
Chun, who seized power in a military coup in 1979, was ordered by the Supreme Court in 1997 to return to state coffers 220.5 billion won he had accumulated illegally while in office from 1981 to 1988.
He had refused to make most of the payment, claiming he was almost penniless.
Prosecutors seized about 600 pieces of art during their search of the houses of the former president’s family members in July 2013 and sold them at auction, adding 7.2 billion won to the state coffers.
The family still has not paid about 100 billion won. (Yonhap)
