Prosecutors on Tuesday maintained their sentence demand for two former aides of ousted President Park Geun-hye for allegedly keeping a secret register of artists deemed critical of her government to disadvantage them in various ways.
Special Counsel in charge of the case asked the appellate court to sentence former chief of staff Kim Ki-choon and former Culture Minister Cho Yoon-sun to seven and six years in prison, respectively.
It also demanded the same jail terms for five others, including then presidential and culture ministry officials charged for their involvement in the case, as the sentences requested in the trial at the lowest court.
Kim and Cho were indicted in February on charges of abuse of power and perjury. They are accused of masterminding the creation of a list of nearly 10,000 artists, writers and filmmakers deemed unfriendly to the then conservative administration. Those on the list were denied state subsidies or removed from their jobs in the mainstream media.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Kim in July to three years in jail, finding him guilty of the charges. But it released Cho on a one-year prison term suspended for two years, convicting her only of perjury.
Both the prosecution and defendants have appealed the ruling.
Kim was in office from mid-2013 to early 2015. Cho served as the presidential secretary for political affairs from June 2014 for about a year and became the culture minister in September last year. (Yonhap)
