The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court's suspended prison sentence for former lawmaker Youn Mee-hyang convicted of embezzling funds donated to help support women who were forced into wartime sexual slavery by Japan during World War II.

The top court confirmed the Seoul High Court's 1 1/2-year prison term, suspended for three years, delivered to Youn in September last year, saying the verdict did not contain any errors or misunderstanding of the legal principles.

The top court's ruling came over four years after her indictment. Youn was indicted in September 2020 for collecting hundreds of millions of won in donations in her private bank accounts and spending some of that money on personal matters, while heading a major civic group for wartime sexual slavery victims, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery.

Youn led the group from 2005-20 before winning a parliamentary seat on the Democratic Party's (DP) ticket in 2020. The DP expelled Youn in 2021.

In February 2023, a Seoul district court sentenced her to a fine of 15 million won (US$10,700), setting the amount of embezzlement at 17.2 million won. But the appellate court found Youn guilty of embezzling about 80 million won and misappropriating 65.2 million won provided by the gender ministry as subsidies. (Yonhap)