Kim un-Yong, South Korea’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice president, told an appeals court hearing he had been wrongly convicted and jailed on corruption charges.
Kim Yong-Kwan, a senior judge at the Seoul High Court, told AFP after the appeals hearing opened, “Mr. Kim un-Yong continued to plead not guilty”.
The judge said he expected to hand down a ruling on the appeal on September 17.
In June a lower court sentenced Kim to two and a half years in jail for diverting $2.9 million from South Korean sports bodies and accepting bribes from business contracts and he was also ordered to repay 788 million won embezzled when he was the country’s sports czar. He became the highest IOC member to be jailed for corruption.
Kim was suspended form all Olympic responsibilities in January pending the outcome of the case, which is being monitored by the IOC’s ethics commission.
