Aggregated News
An appellate court Thursday upheld a ruling that found Hwang Woo-suk — the cloning scientist disgraced for falsely claiming a major breakthrough in stem-cell research — guilty of embezzlement of government research funds and the illegal use of human ova.
The court also confirmed the one-and-a-half year jail sentence suspended for two years. It dismissed one embezzlement charge involving $100,000 citing lack of evidence.
The 57-year-old scientist was indicted in 2006 on charges of misusing nearly $800,000 in funds from the government and two Korean firms — SK Group and Nonghyup — and illegally buying human ova for his research.
Hwang obtained the funds using papers published in the journal Science in 2004 and 2005 — later retracted — that were based on fabricated data, which constituted fraud, according to prosecutors.
The appellate court made no judgment on the test fabrications, saying it would leave that to the discretion of the science community.
Judge Lee Sung-ho of the Seoul High Court said Hwang had obviously spent state research funds for personal use and violated bioethics laws.
“The funds given by...
The court also confirmed the one-and-a-half year jail sentence suspended for two years. It dismissed one embezzlement charge involving $100,000 citing lack of evidence.
The 57-year-old scientist was indicted in 2006 on charges of misusing nearly $800,000 in funds from the government and two Korean firms — SK Group and Nonghyup — and illegally buying human ova for his research.
Hwang obtained the funds using papers published in the journal Science in 2004 and 2005 — later retracted — that were based on fabricated data, which constituted fraud, according to prosecutors.
The appellate court made no judgment on the test fabrications, saying it would leave that to the discretion of the science community.
Judge Lee Sung-ho of the Seoul High Court said Hwang had obviously spent state research funds for personal use and violated bioethics laws.
“The funds given by...