Samsung heir appears in court, awaits decision on whether he’ll be jailed again

SEOUL: Samsung Group heir Jay Y. Lee on Monday arrived at a South Korean court which will rule whether he will be sent back to jail after more than two years of freedom, as new allegations dog the executive and cast a pall over the country’s top conglomerate.

Prosecutors on Thursday asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Lee, culminating a probe into accounting fraud and a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates that they said helped facilitate Lee’s plan to assume greater control of the group.

Lee, 51, wearing a face mask and a dark suit, appeared at the Seoul court for a hearing scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. (0230 GMT). He did not answer questions from reporters before entering the court.