Kim Hong-gul Gets Suspended Jail Term

The youngest son of President Kim Dae-jung received a suspended jail sentence. In a sentence hearing on Nov. 11, the Seoul District Court handed down Kim Hong-gul a two-year jail term for bribery and influence peddling, with a three years suspended sentence, and fined him 200 million won.

Choi Gyu-sun, who was also charged with taking bribes from corporations seeking business favors, received two and a half year sentence plus 456 million in fine. Kim Hee-wan, former deputy mayor of Seoul, was given a one and a half year term and fined with 80 million won.

˝The accused should have behaved in a discreet way as a son of president, but he did not refused Choi`s offers for influence peddling, which is reprehensible, ˝ said the court ruling.

It continued to say, ˝The court took into consideration that Tiger Pools was mostly asking for a fair chance in the bidding competition and Kim Hong-gul was passively involved.˝

˝Given that his elder brother was sentenced to years of a jail term for taking bribes, the court decided to give him a suspended jail sentence,˝ the ruling explained.

Meanwhile, the court said that it found Kim not guilty on a charge that he received some 150 million won from a construction company in March 2001 at the time of relocation of the Defense Intelligence Agency, citing ˝testimony from the chairman of the company proved groundless and there is no hard evidence.˝

Kim was convicted of taking 3.69 billion won, including 114,000 shares of the company, from lottery firm Tiger Pools Korea in return for influence peddling, and tax evasion of some 224 million worth.

Jin-Kyun Kil leon@donga.com