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(LEAD) Daewoo founder walks after being found guilty of hiding assets
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Yonhap) -- Kim Woo-choong, former chairman of the now-dismantled Daewoo Group, was found guilty Thursday of hiding assets subject to forfeiture but evaded a jail term as the court ruled the crime was unintentional.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced him to a year and a half in prison, suspended for two years, on charges of stashing assets valued at 115 billion won (US$99.6 million). The verdict is to be the final court action against him in the wake of Daewoo's collapse a decade ago.
"The weight of the crime is grave, but the defendant deeply regrets it and the pertinent assets have since been forfeited to the government," Judge Yoon Gyeong said.
Kim, who was sentenced in 2006 to eight and a half years in prison and ordered to forfeit 17.9 trillion won for fraud and embezzlement, was pardoned last December as part of a presidential amnesty.
In July, prosecutors brought fresh charges against Kim after finding he had stashed 115 billion won in an overseas paper company he established. Kim said the assets had been reported to the authorities but could not be forfeited because separate court battles with creditors were then underway.
Prosecutors sought a one-year jail term for Kim, to be suspended for two years.
Kim, who underwent two heart surgeries, came to the courtroom in a white patient suit and a wheelchair and was helped by his aides to move to the defense table.
The ruling, initially scheduled for Sept. 4, was rescheduled after Kim requested a delay citing his ill health. He had spent six years overseas on the run until his return home in 2005 to face trial.
Once South Korea's second largest conglomerate, Daewoo collapsed in 1999 under the weight of an US$80 billion in debt in non-performing bank loans in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.
Before Daewoo's fall, Kim was an inspiration to Korean youth, transforming a small textile firm into a major conglomerate that drove Korean exports abroad and fueled the country's meteoric industrial growth from the 1970s through the 90s.
Some see Daewoo as a victim of the government's policy shift towards ending cash injections into troubled conglomerates.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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