Kim Ki-choon receives 3 years over blacklist By Kim Se-jeong

Former culture minister Cho Yoon-sun gets suspended jail term
A Seoul court sentenced Kim Ki-choon, the former chief of staff to former President Park Geun-hye, to three years in prison Thursday for his role in drafting a “blacklist” of artists critical of the government.

The Seoul Central District Court handed him the jail sentence after finding him guilty of abuse of power, coercion and perjury

Kim Ki-choon

It also found Cho Yoon-sun, the former culture minister, guilty of perjury at a congressional hearing and sentenced her to one year in prison suspended for two years. “I am glad things were cleared up for me. I will comply fully with future procedures,” Cho said as she was leaving the court.

A judge said Kim was the head of the blacklist creation. “His action amounted to abuse of power,” the judge said reading the verdict. “We found the list affected artists indirectly for a long period of time and damaged public trust in the government.”
Speaking about Cho, the judge said it was difficult to prove she was actively involved in creating the list, although she knew about it and lied to the National Assembly.

The prosecution initially asked the court for seven years imprisonment for Kim and six years for Cho.

Kim worked for Park between August 2013 and February 2015, while Cho served from September 2016 to January 2017 as culture minister.

Cho Yoon-sun The two were arrested in January for abusing their power to create a list of artists who were banned from receiving public grants or projects. Almost 10,000 painters, writers, newspaper companies, publishers and movie directors were on the list.The judge mentioned Kim’s name in relation to removing funding for the Busan International Film Festival. “Kim is responsible for cutting support for the Busan film festival.”He also criticized Cho for “knowingly lying about the blacklist” at the congressional hearing _ the former minister told lawmakers that she had not known of its existence.

In addition to Kim and Cho, the court also convicted five others for creating the blacklist. It sentenced Kim Jong-deok, a former culture minister, to two years in prison for abuse of power.

It handed a 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years to Kim So-young, the former presidential secretary for cultural and sports affairs.

The court also handed down 18-month prison terms each for Kim Sang-ryul, the former senior presidential secretary for education and culture; Chung Kwan-joo, the former vice culture minister; and Shin Dong-chul, the former presidential secretary for political affairs.

The blacklist was part of a corruption scandal that removed Park from power. Bribery is one of the charges facing Park and her confidante Choi Soon-sil who are both on trial.

The scandal prompted people to take their anger to the streets. The weekend protests which lasted almost three months were marked by their peacefulness and high public participation — at the peak, the participants reached 1 million.

The seven accused have one week to appeal the ruling.

Source:koreatimes.co.k