Ex-President Chun’s son detained in workhouse

SEOUL, July 1 (Yonhap) — The second son of former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan has been imprisoned in a workhouse in Seoul on Friday for failing to pay fines levied over tax evasion charges, prosecutors said.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said Chun Jae-yong was put in a prison workshop Friday morning, concluding that the 51-year-old is unlikely to pay some 3.8 billion won (US$3.3 million) in fines he owes.

The Supreme Court sentenced him to three years in prison, suspended for four years, in August 2015, for collaborating with his uncle to dodge some 2.7 billion won of taxes in the process of selling a plot of land in Osan, Gyeonggi Province, in 2006. The court had also ordered Chun to pay 4 billion won in fines.

Chun, however, has only paid 140 million won so far, despite the fact that he was allowed to pay the charges in installments from January to June this year, according to prosecutors.

He has been ordered to work 965 days, or two years and eight months, calculating his daily wage as 4 million won.

Prosecutors said they took into consideration Chun’s financial status and the fact that the final installment date has passed.

Under local law, those who are ordered to pay a fine of 500 million won or more, but less than 5 billion won, should be detained in a workhouse for more than 500 days if the fines are not paid within the designated period.

The brother-in-law of Chun Doo-hwan, Lee Chang-seok, was also taken into custody for labor on the same day.

Lee, who had received an 18-month jail term, suspended for four years, was ordered to work 857 days, or some two years and four months. Despite the court’s order to pay a fine of 4 billion won, he only paid some 50 million won as of Thursday, prosecutors said.

Jae-yong’s father Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power in a military coup in 1979, was ordered by the Supreme Court in 1997 to return to state coffers the 220.5 billion won he had accumulated illegally while in office from 1981 to 1988.

The prosecution’s efforts to reclaim the money are still under way as he has been refusing to make most of the payment, claiming he is almost penniless.

Chun Jae-yong, the second son of former President Chun Doo-hwan, leaves the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Sept. 4, 2013. Jae-yong was detained in a workhouse on July 1, 2016, for not paying fines he was ordered to pay in a court ruling made in 2015. The Supreme Court convicted him of evading some 2.7 billion won (US$2.3 million) of taxes in the process of selling a plot of land in 2006. (Yonhap)