S. Korea Split on Sentencing of President’s Son

The president’s son is going to jail, and to Yoon Jae Hee that is proof that South Korea is finally learning the rule of law.

“Many youth bled to achieve democracy. This is the result of their struggle,” Yoon, a 48-year-old banker, said Monday upon hearing that Kim Hyon Chol, son of President Kim Young Sam, had been sentenced to three years in prison for bribery and tax evasion in the culmination of a massive corruption scandal.

Other citizens saw Kim Hyon Chol as a scapegoat for a changing Korean political culture that is retroactively applying new standards of accountability.

“I think he should be pardoned--not because he’s innocent, but because if we punish him, we have to punish all our politicians, without exception,” said Kim Kap Jo, 61, a retired police officer.

The 38-year-old Kim Hyon Chol, who managed his father’s 1992 election campaign, was arrested in May on charges of peddling his political influence to business leaders in exchange for about $3.5 million in bribes--and of failing to pay taxes on the proceeds.

His conviction marked the political nadir of President Kim, who came into office as a corruption fighter and jailed scores of business leaders, officials and politicians--including two former presidents--in a bid to end South Korea’s infamous dirty-money politics.

Ironically, Kim Hyon Chol was convicted Monday of violating a law introduced by his father in 1993 that requires citizens to use their real names in financial transactions. The law, which President Kim called his “reform of reforms,” was intended to curb endemic tax evasion, graft and the accumulation of secret political slush funds.

A three-judge panel ruled Monday that Kim Hyon Chol had entrusted $5.4 million to an associate to manage, directing that it be put into a bank account under a false name. He also received payoffs of nearly $55,000 a month for more than two years in exchange for helping that associate and others obtain cable television licenses, the court found.

*

None of the Kim family attended the trial or Monday’s sentencing. A spokesman for the president said it would be inappropriate for the Blue House--South Korea’s White House--to comment on a judicial decision. There was no word on the president’s reaction.

“Kim Young Sam has experienced real disgrace,” said Park Jai Chang, a professor at Sook Myung Women’s University. “It’s a family-linked penalty. . . . In the old Korean system, when you were convicted of bribery, the government put a nameplate on the gate of your house. That means the disgrace is not just individual.”

Kim Hyon Chol sat impassively, wearing his light-blue prison uniform, during the 45 minutes it took Judge Sohn Ji Yeol to read the court’s verdict. However, he shook the hand of his close friend Kim Ki Sup, a former intelligence agency official who was convicted of taking a $16,000 bribe but received a suspended sentence and walked out of the courtroom a free man.

Four other associates of the junior Kim were also convicted and received sentences of up to 2 1/2 years in prison and fines of up to $95,000. The court ruled that some of the money Kim accepted was gifts, not bribes, as Kim’s lawyers had asserted. However, he was given a fine of $2.1 million--$1.6 million for bribes the court found he had accepted and about $500,000 in taxes owed--in addition to the three-year prison term.

All of the defendants are expected to appeal, as South Korean high courts traditionally reduce the sentences of political offenders.

Whatever the final outcome, many South Koreans believe that the winner of the Dec. 18 presidential election will pardon Kim Hyon Chol. Already, the nation’s leaders are tussling over the politics of amnesty for former presidents Roh Tae Woo and Chun Doo Hwan, who were convicted of corruption and treason last summer.

Kim Young Sam, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term, has said pardons for the two men will be granted eventually--but he flatly turned down a request by ruling party presidential candidate Lee Hoi Chang to pardon the two last month.

According to the South Korean press, the incident has created a rift between the lame-duck president and his would-be political heir. Lee had reportedly hoped to boost his dismal popularity ratings by lobbying for a pardon that would gain him the goodwill of the two former presidents’ supporters.

Kim Young Sam has already pardoned 23 people jailed for corruption, including tycoons convicted of giving bribes to the two ex-presidents. Some observers think he will now have to practice still more forgiveness--if only to set a precedent for leniency that could then be applied to his own son.

Political analysts interviewed Monday said Kim Hyon Chol’s prison sentence means that no South Korean is now above the law--a principle needing enunciation in a country that began the long march toward democracy only a decade ago.

“It is unprecedented in our history,” said Han Sang Jin, a professor at Seoul National University. “It has enormous and threatening repercussions, I think, to both the ruling party and opposition politicians.”

But analysts disagreed over how far it will go toward cleaning up the money-drenched political system. Kim Hyon Chol’s $5.4-million fund is widely believed to have been the financial leftovers from his father’s 1992 presidential campaign--but the court did not probe the source of the money, nor did prosecutors demand that it be surrendered.

“Nothing has actually changed in terms of the structure of Korean politics,” warned Park. “We can expect second and third versions of the Kim Hyon Chol case because we still need illegal money to run politics. And voters still ask favors.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.