Lee Jae-Young was halfway through a five-year jail sentence for fraud, embezzlement and bribing Korea’s then-president when he was granted a special presidential pardon in August 2022.
Lee, heir to the multi-billion dollar Samsung corporation and a former chief executive, was jailed in 2018 for offences including embezzling company funds to buy a $USD800,000 horse for the daughter of a friend of the then-president Park Geun-Hye.
The government justified the decision by claiming that Korea's most significant company needed him back at the helm to boost Samsung's flagging performance. He was duly appointed not long after his release from jail.
