The director of Samsung who was in prison for bribery was pardoned
The South Korean president Yun Suk-Yol pardons the vice president of Samsung Electronics, Lee Jae Yong to help overcome the "national economic crisis", South Korea's Ministry of Justice said today.
The pardon is largely symbolic, as Lee is already on parole after serving 18 months in prison for bribery while at the helm of the world's largest maker of smartphones and memory chips.
The Minister of Justice Han Dong-hun said, after Shin Dong-bin, chairman of Lotte Group, South Korea's fifth largest business conglomerate, was pardoned, that the government, due to the urgent need to overcome the national economic crisis, "carefully sought to pardon economic leaders who drive the national engine of growth through active investment in technology and creating new jobs."