Prosecutors seek to sentence Park Geun-hye to 30 years in prison

SEOUL - South Korean prosecutors asked a Seoul appeals court Friday to sentence former President Park Geun-hye to 30 years in prison over a set of corruption charges that led to her impeachment.

Park was sentenced to 24 years in jail by a court on April 6, but prosecutors made the same request to the appeals court for sentencing the impeached president to 30 years behind bars.

Prosecutors demanded a fine of 118.5 billion won (104 million US dollars) for Park. The lower court ordered a fine of 18 billion won (16 million US dollars).

Park was accused of colluding with her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil who has been put into custody, to force big conglomerates, including Samsung Group, to donate 77.4 billion won (68.2 million US dollars) to two non-profit foundations controlled by Choi.

She was also charged with taking 43.3 billion won (38.2 million US dollars) in bribe from Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in exchange for helping Lee inherit the management control from his ailing father, Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

Park has not appeared in court hearings since October last year, calling her trials politically motivated.

The appeals court's ruling was scheduled to be made on Aug 24.