Seoul: South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon-hee, the wife of impeached ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol, has been taken into custody on multiple corruption charges.
The Seoul Central District Court approved an arrest warrant for Kim, citing a risk of evidence tampering. “The arrest warrant against Kim has been issued,” prosecutors said in a brief statement carried by Yonhap News Agency.
Kim faces allegations of violating capital market and political funding laws, charges she has denied. The special counsel investigating her was appointed in June, shortly after President Lee Jae-myung took office, to examine 16 alleged offences. Wednesday’s warrant, however, covered only three.
Prosecutors allege that between 2009 and 2012, Kim conspired with others to artificially inflate the stock price of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealership, generating illicit profits of more than 800 million won (£428,000). She is also accused of accepting more than 270 million won in illegal political contributions, allegedly in the form of free opinion polling services to sway candidate selections for the ruling People Power Party during the 2022 byelections.
A third charge involves claims she accepted luxury gifts, including Chanel handbags and jewellery from the Unification Church, via a shaman intermediary, in exchange for favorable consideration of development projects in Cambodia.
Kim was questioned for more than seven hours last week before prosecutors sought the arrest warrant. During her court appearance, she reportedly expressed frustration that matters predating her marriage were under scrutiny, telling the judge she was upset that even issues from before my marriage keep being brought up.
Judge Jeong Jae-wook said concerns about possible evidence destruction justified the decision to detain her. Kim spent four and a half hours in court and denied all allegations.
She will be held at the Nambu Detention Centre in southwestern Seoul, while her husband, former president, remains in custody at the Seoul Detention Centre, where he has been since July amid an investigation into his failed attempt to impose martial law in December last year.
