Update: BBC and Reuters report that South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been removed from office. The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment in an 8-0 decision.
Samsung Group's vice chairman and "de facto leader" Jay Y. Lee and four other executives have denied the charges against them in what is being called South Korea's "trial of the century":
Five executives at Samsung, including the conglomerate's de facto leader, Lee Jae-yong, formally denied bribery charges against them on Thursday, in a preliminary hearing for a trial with the potential to shake South Korea.
Mr. Lee, who also goes by the name Jay Y. Lee, and the other executives face charges that strike at the heart of the deep ties between the South Korean government and powerful family-controlled businesses, a source of growing public resentment. Parliament voted in December to impeach President Park Geun-hye over accusations of corruption and other abuses of power, and she could be formally removed from office soon.
But the related arrest of Mr. Lee, scion of the country's biggest and most profitable conglomerate, or chaebol, is a momentous turn in itself. Chaebol bosses, including Mr. Lee's father, have been convicted in previous corruption cases, but punishments have usually been light or commuted. Many see Mr. Lee's trial as a test of whether South Korea can change by abandoning longstanding deference to the business clans that have dominated the country's glittering economic rise. The chief prosecutor has said it could be the "trial of the century."
Previously: Samsung Vice Chairman a Suspect in South Korean Presidential Bribery Probe
Warrant Sought for the Arrest of Samsung's Vice Chairman
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)
Not me. He's not my president. If they come for me, I have some good friends by the names of Smith and Wesson who will speak up for me. Otherwise I don't care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @06:33PM
Park Geun-hye is female.