S.Korean president pardons ex-president Park Geun-hye

File photo taken on May 23, 2017, shows South Korea's former President Park Geun-hye (front) in Seoul, South Korea. (Xinhua/POOL KOREA OUT)

South Korea's former president Park Geun-hye was included in the list of Moon's special amnesty granted to 3,094 inmates for the new year.

SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in has decided to pardon former President Park Geun-hye, who has been imprisoned for 57 months over corruption charges, the justice ministry said Friday.

Park was included in the list of Moon's special amnesty granted to 3,094 inmates for the new year.

Park was sentenced to a combined 22-year prison term, and has been serving the sentence since March 2017 after being impeached and removed from office over corruption charges.

Park will be released on Dec. 31 from a hospital in Seoul. The 69-year-old has been hospitalized for a month due to her chronic shoulder and waist pain. She received a shoulder surgery in 2019.

Han Myeong-sook, who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 under the liberal Roh Moo-hyun government, is also on the list of Moon's special amnesty.

Han was convicted of bribery in 2015 and completed her two-year prison term in 2017.

Previously, the former prime minister claimed her innocence, saying the charges against her was fabricated as the political revenge by the conservative bloc against the Roh administration.