South Korean prosecutors on Monday sought 12 years in prison for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, an heir apparent of Samsung Group, the country's biggest family-run conglomerate, on bribery charges.
Special prosecutors, which had investigated the corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, said in the final court hearing of the Samsung heir that the case was a "typical corruption offense" based on cozy ties between politicians and businessmen, which severely damages the constitutional value.
The team of Park Young-soo, who was named independent counsel in November last year for the corruption case, demanded 12 years of imprisonment for Vice Chairman Lee, while asking seven to 10 years in jail for four other former Samsung executives.
The Seoul court will make a ruling on Lee on Aug. 25, before his six-month custody period ends on Aug. 27.
The undertrials had continued false statement and excuse, that was hard to make people understand, during the past court hearings that lasted for over five months, the special prosecutors said.
The Samsung heir was brought into custody on Feb. 17 and indicted 11 days later with detention on five charges of bribery, embezzlement, perjury, hiding assets overseas and concealing the proceeds of criminal acts.
A total of 53 public hearings had been held for the past months, indicating about three hearings being held every week.
A great public attention was paid to what the independent counsel called the "trial of the century." Scores of people waited in a long queue outside the Seoul court to receive admissions to the hearings, which were given on a first-come-first-severed basis.
The great interest was partly because of the rare public appearance of Lee, the third-generation heir of the country's biggest business empire, sometimes called here "Samsung Republic."
It was also because of the ruling on Lee affecting court rulings on the impeached Park and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who was at the center of the influence-peddling scandal and has been under trial.
Park was forcibly called in by the court to appear in the hearing of Lee as witness, but the impeached president denied it, violating another law.
The team of counsels defending Lee said in the final court hearing that the claims by special prosecutors were full of guesswork and based on circumstantial evidences. The team was reportedly composed of 26 famous lawyers.
In his final statement, Lee denied all of the charges levied on him, complaining of an injustice.
The princeling of the South Korea's richest family was charged with paying, or promising to pay, about 43.3 billion won (38.4 million U.S. dollars) in bribes to the ousted President Park and her decades-long friend Choi.
The payment was suspected of being made in exchange for political favors in the controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates seen as crucial to the father-to-son power transfer of the Samsung family.
The merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T was made possible as the national pension fund, which is in charge of retirement savings for nearly half of the 50 million population, supported the 2015 merger. The National Pension Service (NPS) was then-biggest shareholder of one of the two Samsung units.
The merger was extremely crucial to the third-generation Samsung chief to inherit the management control from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee who has been hospitalized in 2014 for heart attack.
Samsung was the biggest donor to two nonprofit foundations, which Choi allegedly controlled for personal gains. As the impeached Park was branded as an accomplice to Choi, bribing Choi would be equivalent to bribing Park.
Samsung also signed a contract of millions of U.S. dollars with a German company owned by Choi and her daughter to finance the daughter's equestrian training in the European country.
The Samsung vice chairman was also accused of lying under oath during a December parliamentary hearing over the presidential scandal. (Updated)
