Buddha's birthday has an addition meaning for some Koreans besides the Buddhist celebration--amnesty from criminal convictions.
Thirty-one businessmen convicted of bribery, accounting fraud and other criminal charges will be given special amnesty on the occasion of Buddha’s birthday.
To be pardoned include many executives from Korea's top conglomerates:
Lee Hak-soo, vice chairman of Samsung Group’s corporate restructuring office
Kang Yu-sik, LG Group vice chairman
Kim Dong-jin, Hyundai Motor vice chairman
Park Chan-bup, CEO of Asiana Airlines
Shin Dong-in, president of Lotte Shopping.
Why?
The special amnesty is designed to restore the businessmen’s honor and reinstate them so that they can concentrate on reviving the economy.
The ministry said the government has decided to pardon those businessmen in recognition of their contributions to the economy. It expressed hope that they will make more efforts to help boost the sluggish economy.
The ministry explained that most ranking officials of large corporations were requested to provide illegal political funds by politicians and the social atmosphere is now considered mature enough to put an end to those illegal practices.
Twelve chairmen or chief executive officials of major companies, who provided slush funds during the presidential election in 2002, were included on the list.
Nineteen others were related to manipulating accounting books, including Lee Chong-hoon, former vice president of the Korea Express. Many former officials of the now-defunct Daewoo Group, including Lee Sung-won, former executive of Daewoo Corporation, were also on the list
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