SEOUL, Jan 29 (NNN-YONHAP) – Kim Keon-hee, wife of the impeached former South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for taking bribes.
The Seoul Central District Court handed down the sentence with a forfeiture of 12.81 million won (about 9,010 U.S. dollars), saying Kim exploited her position, for private profit.
The court found her not guilty of the charges of violating the capital markets act and the political funds act.
Kim was charged with receiving valuables from Unification Church officials, in return for favourable treatment of the religious group in 2022.
The court rejected the special counsel’s claim of Kim’s involvement in stock rigging, saying, it was difficult to confirm her complicity, even if she was aware of the stock price manipulation.
Kim was indicted while in detention in Aug last year, on charges of her participation in the stock price manipulation, between Oct, 2010 and Dec, 2012.
She was also charged with conspiring with Yoon, to receive illegal public opinion poll results, worth about 270 million won, free of charge, from a political broker on 58 occasions, from Apr, 2021, to Mar, 2022, ahead of the presidential election.
The court, however, ruled that, there was no evidence to prove the presidential couple’s order of the opinion polls.
Apart from the ruling, Kim was indicted on charges of requesting mass enrollment of Unification Church members, in the People Power Party, to support a specific candidate as a party leader in the party’s national convention.
She also faced charges of accepting valuables in exchange for providing business favours and selling public offices.
Kim became the first, wife of a former South Korean president, to be tried under detention, as she has been held at a detention centre since last Aug.– NNN-YONHAP