TV personality gets increased prison term
Meaza Eshetu, who was on the panel of the now-discontinued TV show “Global Talk Show,” has received increased prison time for her international drug trafficking conviction.The Seoul High Court announced Thursday that the Ethiopian professor has been sentenced to four years in prison for trying to ship a drug called khat overseas.
According the prosecution, Eshetu with her accomplice were arrested last year for attempting to ship 566 kilograms (1,250 pounds) of khat they had obtained from Kenya to the United States. The prosecution later found another 2,446 kilograms of khat stored in a car registered to Eshetu and in storage in Yongsan District, central Seoul. Khat is a plant that is chewed as a drug.
Eshetu had appealed the initial ruling of three years of prison but the court increased the penalty to four years.
The court explained that the severity of the crime and the amount of drugs she had stored to explain the additional prison time.
Eshetu moved to Korea in 2003 and worked as a business management professor.
BY JEONG BYUNG-KI
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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