South Korea's former intelligence chief was Monday sentenced to three years in prison for interfering during in the 2012 presidential election.
The Seoul High Court overturned a previous lower court ruling sentenced Won Sei-hoon, former head of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), to two-and-a-half years in prison, Xinhua reported.
After the court's ruling, the 62-year-old was taken into custody.
The court said Won violated the NIS act as well as the election law, which ban public officials from engaging in election campaign activities.
The court ruling said Won instructed his subordinates to intervene in domestic politics, in violation of the election law by meddling in the 2012 presidential election.
It said NIS officials were ordered by Won to use more than 700 Twitter accounts to post around 274,800 negative comments online against opposition candidates and in favour of the then ruling party hopeful Park Geun-hye during the 2012 election.
