Lee Jae Yong, the head of South Korea's biggest conglomerate Samsung Group, was detained Monday after an appeals court sentenced him to 30 months in prison over bribery and embezzlement.

The vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. had been charged with bribing former President Park Geun Hye and her longtime friend Choi Soon Sil. The prosecution had demanded nine years in prison.

The imprisonment leaves Samsung leaderless amidst the coronavirus pandemic, potentially impacting the group's businesses.

The Seoul High Court said in its ruling that 52-year-old Lee embezzled Samsung Electronics money and bribed Park at her request. The Supreme Court last week upheld a 20-year prison term for Park over the bribery and other crimes.

Lee, who appeared before the court on Monday, was taken into custody after the ruling was delivered. In his closing statement in December, he had pleaded for a suspended sentence.

Lee was initially sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 for giving 8.8 billion won ($7.95 million) in bribes, which a court said he had given in hopes of receiving a favorable treatment from the Park government in the process of elevating him to Samsung Group's leadership.

An appeals court, however, reduced the sentence and suspended it in February 2018, finding a smaller amount as bribes. He was thus freed about a year after his arrest.

Then in 2019 the top court sent the case back for a retrial, determining that he should be held responsible for a total of 8.6 billion won in bribes, which was more than acknowledged by the lower court.

==Kyodo

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