The government finalizes the recipients of the special New Year’s pardon at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Yoon Seok-yeol on the 27th.
According to the results of the review by the Justice Ministry’s amnesty review committee on the 23rd, former President Lee Myung-bak (MB) and former Gyeongnam governor Kim Gyeong-soo are expected to be pardoned.
Lee, who is due to be pardoned and reinstated, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in October 2020 on embezzlement and bribery charges. Lee’s execution is currently suspended due to health reasons. Lee was investigated by the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office in April 2018, when President Yoon was the head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, and was indicted.
Former Governor Kim, who is serving a sentence in the “Drug Comment Manipulation Incident,” is expected to receive an amnesty without a lottery ticket. Former governor Kim was sentenced to two years in prison by the Supreme Court in July last year and his sentence expires in May next year. If the lottery does not take place, the right to vote will be limited until May 2028.
Former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon of the Park Geun-hye administration, former deputy prime minister and minister of strategy and finance Choi Kyung-hwan, former directors of the national intelligence service Nam Jae-joon, Lee Byung-ki and Lee Byung -ho, and former NIS director Won Sei-hoon of the Lee Myung-bak administration should also be included in the pardons and reinstatements.
Opposition figures such as Jeon Byung-hun, a former Democratic Party lawmaker and former Democratic Party lawmaker Shin Gye-ryun, and former Gwangju mayor Kang Woon-tae, who served as senior presidential secretary for political affairs in the Moon Jae-in administration, are also expected to be pardoned and reinstated.
The pardon takes effect from 00:00 on the 28th, the day following the approval by the Council of State.
