Former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak will be pardoned after serving almost four years of a 17-year sentence for corruption, embezzlement and bribery, the country’s justice ministry has said.
President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Tuesday that the special pardon had been issued for Lee, 81, in the name of promoting national unity, though many South Koreans remain opposed to the move. Lee will be among more than 1,300 people to be pardoned on Wednesday.
Lee led the country from 2008 to 2013 after serving as mayor of Seoul and working as a prominent executive in Hyundai Group’s construction arm. He was the country’s first president from a business background and the fourth former leader to be imprisoned since the transition to democracy in 1987.