SOUTH Korea’s Supreme Court today handed a suspended prison sentence to a former lawmaker who was found guilty of embezzling funds while leading a group supporting Korean survivors of Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement system.

Yoon Meehyang, who was also convicted of fraudulently receiving government subsidies and unlawfully collecting donations, didn’t attend the verdict, which confirmed a lower court’s sentence of a year and six months in prison, suspended for three years.

In a statement on Facebook, Ms Yoon described her conviction as “unjust,” saying she and her colleagues handled the group’s funds properly and “had not pursued private interests.”

Ms Yoon’s group, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, said it plans to return the government subsidies linked to the fraud charges but criticised the court for failing to see the “substantive truth.”

“Despite our efforts over the past four years, we failed to achieve a ‘not guilty’ result with the Supreme Court, but I want to use this opportunity to say once again — my colleagues and I are innocent,” Ms Yoon wrote.

The controversy surrounding Ms Yoon and her group erupted in 2020 when one of the slavery victims, Lee Yong-soo, accused her of misusing donations and other funds and spending little on the victims.