By Bahk Eun-ji

An appeals court has commuted a six-year prison sentence to five years for former President Park Geun-hye on an embezzlement charge for accepting funds from the nation's spy agency on numerous occasions.

Former President Park Geun-hye /Korea Times file

With the reduction, the total jail term given to the former president ousted in a massive corruption scandal is now 32 years.

The Seoul High Court also ordered her to forfeit 2.7 billion won ($2.3 million), also down from a lower court's 3.3 billion won, Thursday.

Park was accused of receiving 3.5 billion won from three former National Intelligence Service (NIS) chiefs ― Nam Jae-joon, Lee Byung-kee and Lee Byeong-ho ― between May 2013 and September 2016. Three key presidential secretaries delivered the money from them to Park, and they were also indicted.

The lower court recognized Park incurred losses to the state coffers by regularly receiving the money, but ruled it was not a bribe, citing a lack of sufficient evidence that the money was in return for Park exercising her influence in their favor.

This time the high court did not accept the charge of causing losses to the state funds either, as the former NIS chiefs were not in finance-related positions ― a prerequisite for charging someone with the state treasury loss. Instead the court recognized the money exchange as embezzlement.

The former president has been imprisoned at Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, since 2017 after being ousted. Last year, an appeals court sentenced her to 25 years in jail and fined her 20 billion won over the corruption scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil. She was also given two years in jail for election law violations.