SEOUL, Jul 3 (NNN-YONHAP) – The mother-in-law of South Korea’s conservative presidential frontrunner, was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday, ahead of the presidential election in Mar, next year.
A local district court in Uijeongbu, about 20 km north of Seoul, sentenced the 74-year-old woman, only identified with her surname Choi, to three years in prison, over fraud.
The mother-in-law of former Prosecutor General, Yoon Seok-youl, was convicted of establishing a medical foundation with three business partners, to open and operate a long-term care hospital for seniors, though they had no medical qualifications.
Choi was accused of obtaining 2.29 billion won (about two million U.S. dollars) of benefits by fraud, from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), for two years until May, 2015.
She was immediately taken into custody. One of her partners got a four-year imprisonment in 2017, and the others were sentenced to two and a half years in jail, with a stay of execution for four years.
The ruling came just three days after Choi’s son-in-law, Yoon, the presidential frontrunner in the conservative bloc, announced his bid for the presidency.
Yoon said, through his spokesman that, it is his belief that, no one can be an exception in the application of law, as he has repeatedly stressed.
Choi was separately charged with fabricating a bank account document in the process of purchasing land in 2013.– NNN-YONHAP
