Suspended IOC Vice President Kim Un-yong has had his sentence on corruption charges reduced by six months and must now serve two years, following a Seoul appellate court hearing Friday.
The court said Kim was found to have embezzled about 3.3 billion won of public funds of the World Taekwondo Federation and received 788 million won in bribes from a Taekwondo goods supplier as a leader of the federation since 2000.
But the court said in a ruling: “however, we acknowledge he has contributed half this life to promoting taekwondo and helped taekwondo to become an Olympic event, and has assisted many inter-Korean sports exchanges.
“Considering his old age and ill health, we reduced the punishment to two years from the two-and-a-half years the lower court had sentenced”.
The IOC has suspended Kim from his duties as vice president until a ruling by the South Korean court is made on his corruption charges.
Meanwhile, the only two men convicted in the Salt Lake City Olympic bribery scandal were let off without penalty at their sentencing Thursday. Both have cooperated with prosecutors in an unsuccessful attempt to help implicate two key officials in the city’s bid for the 2002 Winter Games.
The two men, Salt Lake City businessman David Simmons, and former U.S. Olympic official Alfredo La Mont, who had been on probation since pleading guilty in 1999, received no jail time, fines and probation.
They had been expected to receive leniency in return for their testimony against two Salt Lake City officials, Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, who ended up being acquitted last December.
