The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president has been sentenced to 20 months in jail for accepting bribes from the controversial Unification Church.
However, the court cleared 52-year-old Kim Keon Hee on charges of stock price manipulation and receiving free opinion polls from a political broker before the 2022 presidential election, which her husband Yoon Suk Yeol won.
Yoon has already been sentenced to five years’ in jail for abusing power and obstructing justice in relation to his failed martial law bid in 2024.
This marks the first time in South Korea’s history that a former presidential couple are convicted at the same time.
On Wednesday, Judge Woo In-sung at the Seoul Central District Court ruled that Kim had “misused her position as a means of pursuing personal gain”.
“The higher [one’s] position, the more consciously one must guard against such conduct… The defendant failed to reject solicitations and was preoccupied with self-adornment,” the judge said.
In a statement after the verdict, Kim said: “I humbly accept the court’s sterm admonition and will not take its weight lightly”.
“Once again, I sincerely apologise to everyone for the concern I have caused,” she added. Kim had previously denied all charges.
A special counsel team appointed to the case said Kim received 80m won ($56,000; £40,600) of gifts, which include a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel handbags, from the Unification Church between April and July 2022, in exchange for business and political favours.
The team had sought a 15-year jail term and a fine of 2bn won for all three charges heard on Wednesday – for which Kim was convicted of one – but the judge noted that Kim was not the one who demanded or solicited the bribes, and that she had “no significant criminal record”.
She was however ordered to pay back 12.85m won in cash and the court also ordered the confiscation of the diamond necklace.
Kim has also been charged over her alleged involvement in a scheme to recruit Unification Church followers to the conservative People Power Party that her husband was part of, and accepting gifts in exchange for government job appointments. The court has yet to hear those cases.
The former first lady had denied all charges, saying they were “deeply unjust”, although she did admit to receiving Chanel bags, which she said she later returned without using.
She made a public apology when she appeared for questioning last August. “I am truly sorry that a nobody like me has caused concern to the people,” she said.
Investigations into Kim’s dealings with the Unification Church had also led to the arrest of church leader Han Hak-ja.
Apart from the criminal allegations, Kim has also been the subject of other controversies. Last year, Sookmyung Women’s University annulled an art education degree she graduated with in 1999, after an ethics panel found she had plagiarised her master’s thesis.
By BBC News
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