SEOUL: South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday (Dec 12) upheld a two-year jail sentence for prominent opposition leader Cho Kuk for forging academic documents to secure his children’s admission to prestigious schools.
Cho has been at the forefront of efforts to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol in the wake of his short-lived imposition of martial law last week, which plunged democratic South Korea into political chaos.
“The Supreme Court finds the charges of obstruction of business, and public and private document forgery … against the defendant to be valid,” the country’s highest court said in a statement, upholding a lower court’s ruling.
Cho, formerly a high-profile academic and an aide to ex-president Moon Jae-in, was once considered a rising political star and a potential candidate to succeed his boss.
He was appointed to lead the powerful justice ministry in 2019.
But he was shortly after embroiled in a scandal over his children’s education, accused of forging academic documents for his son and daughter to give them an advantage in college and graduate school admissions.
Source: CNA
