TRADE unionists and democracy campaigners condemned South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol today for pardoning corrupt Samsung heir Lee Jae Yong.

The billionaire head of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate was jailed in 2017 and again in 2021 for bribing former president Park Geun Hye – daugther of the late dictator Park Chung Hee – in a sleaze scandal that led to her fall from power. Ms Park was pardoned in December and freed from a 25-year jail sentence.

Mr Lee will be pardoned on Monday, the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese occupation at the end of the second world war, along with 1,700 others.