S Korea prosecutor seeks arrest of Samsung heir

Jay Y Lee faces arrest on charges that he tried to bribe the president Park Geun-hye

The sprawling investigation into President Park Geun-hye of South Korea took a dramatic turn on Monday with word that the de facto head of Samsung, one of the world’s largest conglomerates, faces arrest on charges that he tried to bribe the president.

A prosecutor’s call for the arrest of Jay Y Lee, the vice-chairman of Samsung and the only son of Samsung’s incapacitated Chairman, Lee Kun-hee, brings new scrutiny to the deep ties between the handful of corporations that dominate South Korea and top government officials. Lee is accused of instructing Samsung subsidiaries to make multimillion-dollar donations to the family of Park’s confidante, Choi Soon-sil, and to two foundations Choi controlled in exchange for political favours from Park.

The special prosecutor, Park Young-soo, said the money represented bribes from Samsung. He said that he had asked a Seoul court to issue an arrest warrant for Lee; it usually takes a few days for a court to decide whether to grant such a warrant.

If Lee is arrested, it will be a landmark in South Korea’s efforts to fight corruption in the country’s powerful family-controlled conglomerates, known as chaebol, and could disrupt his efforts to inherit management control of Samsung, whose tentacles in telecommunications, shipbuilding and a range of other industries reach throughout South Korea’s economy.
 

Lee’s arrest on a bribery charge would further corner Park. During her current trial in the Constitutional Court, prosecutors representing the National Assembly, which voted on December 9 to impeach her, argued that Park and Choi colluded to collect millions from Samsung and other big businesses and that the money was either coerced from businesses or was collected as bribes in return for political favours. Park and Choi have denied any wrongdoing.

Although Samsung has often been investigated on corruption allegations, neither Lee nor his father has spent time in jail. The senior Lee was convicted of bribery in 1996, and of tax evasion and breach of trust in 2009, but in each case, he was not arrested, and his prison terms were suspended. Each time, his criminal records were later erased in presidential pardons, and he soon returned to Samsung’s leadership.

©2017 The New York Times News Service