SEOUL A South Korean court sentenced the daughter of Korean Air Lines' (003490.KS) chairman to one year in prison, after finding her guilty over an on-board incident in New York concerning the way she was served nuts in first class. 
 
 Heather Cho, the airline's former head of in-flight service, violated the law by ordering the plane to return to the gate after it started to taxi on Dec. 5, the court ruled on Thursday. 
 
 Cho had demanded the flight crew chief be expelled from the flight after she was served macadamia nuts in a bag, and not on a dish. The South Korea-bound plane, which had started to move away from the gate, had to return. 
 
 The so-called "nut rage" episode triggered scorn and outrage in a country whose economy is dominated by family-run conglomerates known as chaebol, and where many are fed up with the rich and powerful escaping punishment for bad behaviour. 
 
 "This is a case where human dignity was trampled upon," Judge Oh Sung-woo said. 
 
 The court said it took into account that Cho was the mother of 20-month-old twins and had already suffered, but added that her conduct had seriously harmed the victims. Cho, 40, has been in custody since Dec. 30. 
 
 "It's my understanding that she is repenting," said her lawyer, Suh Chang-hee, adding that he would discuss whether to appeal against the ruling. Korean Air declined to comment. 
 
 In a letter to the court read out by the judge, Cho said she was "truly sorry to those who were hurt". 
 
 Wearing green prison uniform, Cho hung her head, long hair obscuring her face, as the judge read the verdict. She cried when the judge read her apology letter. 
 
 'LIKE SLAVES' 
 
 Prosecutors had sought a three-year jail term if Cho was convicted of breaking aviation law and another charge of using her position to obstruct due process. The court found her not guilty on the second charge. 
 
 It sentenced another executive to eight months in prison for trying to interfere in the government investigation. 
 
 Choi Jin-nyoung, a spokesman of the Korean Bar Association, said he had expected Cho to be sentenced to 1-1/2 to 2 years in prison, as a year is the minimum for aviation law violations. 
 
 "These days, the court makes a decision based on sentencing guidelines, so chaebol people don't get suspended sentences like they did in the past," he said. 
 
 Cho, who resigned after the incident, is the oldest of the three children of Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho. Her siblings also work for the airline. 
 
 (Writing by Jack Kim and Tony Munroe; Additional reporting by Sohee Kim; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ||||| SEOUL, South Korea — A former Korean Air vice president who ordered a plane back to its gate in a fit of anger over how she had been served macadamia nuts was convicted Thursday of violating aviation safety law and sentenced to a year in prison. 
 
 The executive, Cho Hyun-ah, whose father is the airline’s chairman, became an object of international ridicule after the Dec. 5 episode, in which she forced a Korean Air plane taxiing at Kennedy International Airport in New York to return to the gate so the chief steward could be removed. She was said to have been angry that a first-class flight attendant had served the nuts without first asking her, then in an unopened package rather than on a plate. 
 
 A district court in Seoul ruled Thursday that Ms. Cho had illegally forced the flight to change its route by ordering it back to the gate. Her conduct subjected the passengers to potential danger, the court said. 
 
 “She forced the plane to turn around as if it were her own private plane,” Judge Oh Seong-u said in announcing the sentence. 
 
 Ms. Cho, who has been in custody throughout her trial, sat upright during most of the sentencing hearing, wearing a green jail uniform. But when the judge read the letter of repentance she had submitted to the court seeking leniency, she lowered her head and wiped away tears, her shoulders shaking with sobs. 
 
 In the letter, Ms. Cho, one of South Korea’s wealthiest women, described how she was adjusting to life in jail, where she was issued the bare minimum of necessities. She said she was humbled by the generosity of fellow inmates who shared lotion, shampoo and other toiletries with her. 
 
 “I know my faults and I’m very sorry,” Ms. Cho said in her letter. 
 
 But the judge said her tantrum, widely covered by international news media, damaged the “national image” of South Korea. 
 
 “It is doubtful that the way the nuts were served was so wrong,” he said, adding that her verbal and physical assaults on crew members had violated their “human dignity.” He also questioned the sincerity of Ms. Cho’s expressions of remorse. 
 
 Prosecutors had asked that Ms. Cho be sentenced to three years. 
 
 What became known as the “nut rage” episode set off outrage in South Korea, where many harbor deep misgivings about the perceived arrogance of the families who control the country’s major conglomerates, known as chaebol. The scandal escalated as prosecutors charged that Korean Air management had tried to silence the flight’s crew to protect Ms. Cho. Her father, Cho Yang-ho, apologized for her conduct and removed her as vice president of the airline. 
 
 The court also sentenced a Korean Air executive, Yeo Un-jin, to eight months in prison on Thursday for pressuring crew members on the December flight to lie to government investigators and delete emails describing the episode. In their emails, crew members had accused Ms. Cho of using abusive language and throwing documents at one of the flight attendants, prosecutors said. 
 
 Mr. Yeo also blamed the crew for the episode in order to “hide the wrongdoings of management,” the court said in a statement. 
 
 A Transport Ministry official, Kim Un-seob, was sentenced to six months in prison for illegally briefing Mr. Yeo on what were supposed to be confidential details of an official inquiry into the episode. The sentence was suspended. 
 
 Earlier this month, Park Chang-jin, the steward who was removed from the plane, said Ms. Cho had forced him and the junior attendant to apologize on their knees, “like slaves in a medieval era.” 
 
 Korean Air had no immediate comment on the court’s rulings. ||||| SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The headline hogging "nut rage" episode reached a conclusion Thursday with a one year prison sentence for its chief protagonist, Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-ah. A South Korean court found that she violated aviation law when she ordered a crew member off a Dec. 5 flight, forcing the Korean Air plane to return to the gate. Cho, then head of cabin service at the airline, was angered at being offered macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a dish and physically confronted crew in the first-class cabin. 
 
 Members of the media try to get pictures of Cho Hyun-ah, the former vice president of Korean Air Lines, outside of the Seoul Western District Court after her trial in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Feb.... (Associated Press) 
 
 —WHO IS CHO HYUN-AH? 
 
 Cho, 40, is the eldest of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho's three children. After graduating from Hotel Management School at Cornell University, Cho in 1999 joined Korean Air, which was founded by her grandfather. She enjoyed fast-track promotion and became an executive in 2006 at the age of 32. Her paternal grandfather is a member of the first generation of Korean entrepreneurs who helped build the South Korean economy from the ashes of Korean War. She is married to a prominent plastic surgeon who performed his nips and tucks in Gangnam, a tony district of Seoul, and has twin sons. 
 
 —HOW SERIOUS WERE THE CHARGES? 
 
 The most serious of the charges was Cho's violation of aviation security law, which prohibits forcing an aircraft to deviate from its planned route. The maximum penalty on that charge was 10 years in prison. Prosecutors called for a total of three years in prison for all the charges which included assaulting a flight attendant, hindering a government probe, and obstructing flight personnel. The only charge Cho was cleared of was hindering the government's probe. 
 
 — WHAT CAME OUT IN THE COURT ROOM? 
 
 Cho and her family ran Korean Air by instilling fear. No criticism was allowed against their prickly management. Park Chang-jin, the chief flight attendant forced to disembark from the plane by Cho, told judges that she treated employees "like feudal slaves." Kim Do-hee, the flight attendant who served macadamia nuts in a bag to Cho, testified that she saw Cho's power at the airline as "unimaginably big." When Cho became furious, she was like a "beast looking for prey" and an "angry tiger" according to the testimony of the two flight attendants. 
 
 —WHY WAS SOUTH KOREA INFURIATED? 
 
 The incident touched a nerve in South Korea where the economy is dominated by family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebol. Public opinion has turned against the founding families who have tended to treat their sprawling businesses that employ millions of people like personal empires. Their crimes, including tax evasion and embezzling company funds, have usually been punished with suspended prison sentences and later given a clean slate through presidential pardon. The first and second generations of these families were credited with helping to transform South Korea from economic backwater to developed nation. But the third generation is regarded as pampered and entitled and the public is less tolerant of their excesses. 
 
 — WHAT ARE SOUTH KOREANS SAYING ABOUT THE SENTENCE? 
 
 "Personally, I think the one year sentence was a bit short," said Jo Young-sang, 24. "Recently, issues regarding such behaviors are the talk of the town. I think there will be no improvement in the service industry working environment if conglomerates continue to treat people like this." 
 
 "To me, the nut rage incident looked like a rich kid in an elementary school looking down on poor or weak kids," said Chang Sabine, a teacher. "I think she should be doing community service to become mentally matured." 
 
 —WHAT ARE OTHER CHAEBOL CRIMES? 
 
 Tax evasion, breach of trust and embezzlement are the most frequent chaebol family crimes. Cho's father Cho Yang-ho, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-koo, Hanwha chairman Kim Seung-youn, SK chairman Chey Tae-won and CJ Group chairman Lee Jay-hyun are among the chaebol bosses convicted for white collar crimes. Of them, only Chey has been in prison. Bosses at Samsung, Hyundai Motor, Korean Air and Hanhwa received suspended prison terms. In 2007, Hanwha's Kim was found guilty of beating bar workers who scuffled with his then 22-year-old son. Kim's bodyguards took the victims to a construction site near the capital where the tycoon kicked and punched them. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Youkyung Lee: www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Steve Evans reports: "A year in prison and a mountain of humble pie" 
 
 A former executive of South Korea's national airline has been jailed for one year for obstructing aviation safety during a row over nuts. 
 
 Heather Cho forced a plane to return to the gate in New York last December and offload a steward because she did not like the way she had been served nuts. 
 
 Judge Oh Sung-woo said it was a case where "human dignity" had been "trampled upon". 
 
 Ms Cho has apologised and quit Korean Air, which is run by her father. 
 
 Her plane was taxiing at New York's JFK Airport on 5 December when witnesses say she became angry after being served macadamia nuts she did not ask for, and which were still in a bag and not in a bowl. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Cho's father, Korean Air boss Cho Yang-ho, scolded her over the incident 
 
 She ordered the plane to return to the gate and offload the chief steward. 
 
 Judge Oh said Cho had treated the flight "as if it was her own private plane". 
 
 "It is doubtful that the way the nuts were served was so wrong," he said. 
 
 The judge said Cho, who is also known as Cho Hyun-ah, had failed to show enough remorse even after she submitted letters to the court apologising for the incident. 
 
 At the scene: Stephen Evans, BBC News, Seoul 
 
 The case has resonated within South Korea because of a continuing debate over the way the family-owned and run conglomerates - chaebol - operate. 
 
 Some critics say that the way family members are favoured is unfair and mitigates against good business. They say the nut rage case epitomises that. 
 
 In court, Cho wept as she read a letter of contrition, a contrition the judge said he didn't accept was genuine. 
 
 Apart from the serious debate, it is fair to say that many people may relish the way someone with privilege behaved so badly - and was then penalised for it. 
 
 The humiliation may be as heavy a penalty for Cho as the prison sentence. 
 
 Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of three years in prison on charges of breaking aviation law, assault and interfering in an investigation. 
 
 Witnesses testified during the trial that Cho struck a crew member with the service manual. 
 
 Chaebol domination 
 
 Her defence team argued that aviation safety had not been violated as the plane was still being pushed away from the gate. 
 
 However, the judge rejected that argument saying the plane was classed as "in flight" and she interfered. 
 
 Cho, who is the daughter of the chairman of Korean Air, publicly apologised for the incident and resigned from all her posts at the airline in December. 
 
 The trial has opened a national debate about the Korean business system, which is dominated by family firms known as chaebols. 
 
 Some of the families running these businesses have been accused of high-handedness and acting with impunity.
– Former Korean Air executive Heather Cho will spend a year behind bars over an epic case of "nut rage" that her sentencing judge said hurt the "national image" of South Korea. The daughter of the airline's chairman, Cho was found guilty of obstructing aviation safety after a Dec. 5 incident in which she threw a tantrum and forced her taxiing plane to return to the gate at JFK Airport so the chief flight attendant could be removed—all because Cho was served macadamia nuts in a bag rather than on a dish, the BBC reports. "Human dignity was trampled upon," a judge said today, noting Cho acted "as if it was her own private plane." The judge added that Cho, in custody since December, wasn't remorseful, and letters of apology submitted to the court describing her newfound humility didn't seem genuine. South Koreans are taking no small amount of glee in the downfall of the scion of one of its "chaebol," or family-controlled mega-businesses often run like personal empires, reports the AP. The chief flight attendant testified that Cho became like "a beast looking for her prey, grinding her teeth, yelling" during the incident and made him and the attendant who served her apologize on their knees "like slaves in a medieval era," the New York Times reports. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year prison sentence based partly on additional charges of using her position to obstruct due process and assault with a service manual. The judge said Cho's twins, under 2 years old, factored into the sentencing, Reuters reports. Another Korean Air executive was sentenced to eight months in prison for pushing crew members to lie to investigators. (The incident caused macadamia sales to surge.)