WORLD NEWS: South Korean justice increases the sentence for corruption against the former first lady to four years | International
Sources confirm that the following story has emerged from the international scene.
The South Korean Justice has increased this Tuesday from 20 months to four years in prison the sentence for corruption against former first lady Kim Keon-hee, the wife of former president Yoon Suk-yeol, the man who declared martial law in the country in December 2024, an episode that earned him dismissal and a life sentence for insurrection. The Seoul High Court has corrected a lower court’s January ruling against Kim and concluded that the former arts businesswoman not only accepted bribes but also participated in a stock market manipulation scheme. The former South Korean first lady has been in preventive detention since last August. The judicial decision represents a change with respect to the ruling in the first instance, which convicted her only for accepting some gifts and acquitted her of the crime of stock market manipulation due to lack of evidence. The appeals court now maintains that there was involvement in the operation, which justifies the stiffening of the sentence, although this is far from the 15 years in prison that the special prosecutor’s team had requested, according to the South Korean agency Yonhap. The case revolves around manipulation of the share price of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealership in South Korea. According to the ruling, cited by local media, Kim made available to an advisory firm a brokerage account with about 2 billion won (around 1.3 million euros), through which about 180,000 shares of the automobile company were sold. The court considers that this participation links her to the operation, from which, according to the accusation, illicit profits worth 810 million won (about 500,000 euros) were obtained between 2010 and 2012. The new ruling also strengthens corruption convictions related to accepting gifts in exchange for favors. The judges consider it proven that the former first lady received two Chanel bags and a diamond necklace from the Graff brand from a former senior official of the Unification Church in exchange for interceding in matters of interest to this organization, one of the most controversial in the country due to its financial opacity and its close ties with South Korean political and business circles. The gifts are valued together at about 82 million won, around 51,000 euros, according to Yonhap and the South Korean network MBC. However, the court has maintained the acquittal on one of the most politically sensitive charges, the alleged receipt of free opinion polls from an intermediary who claimed to have influence in political circles before the 2022 presidential elections, which brought her husband to the head of state. The judges consider that it has not been proven that these polls were delivered exclusively to Kim or his entourage with the aim of influencing the campaign, since they were also distributed to other people. In addition to the four-year prison sentence, the court has fined him 50 million won (about 34,000 euros) and ordered the confiscation of the diamond necklace, as well as the return of about 20 million won (about 13,500 euros). Kim, 53, is the founder of the exhibition firm Covana Contents and her figure already had a long history of controversy before this sentence. Several of them – from academic plagiarism and falsifying her resume to accepting a Dior bag – dogged Yoon during her tenure and contributed to the decline of her popularity. The case has been one of the most followed in South Korea in recent months. Fifty people gathered this afternoon in front of the court in support of Kim, according to Efe. In a country where several leaders have been prosecuted for corruption, the conviction against the former first lady reinforces the idea that justice continues to act even at the highest levels of power. In February, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to life imprisonment, after ruling that the declaration of martial law in December 2024 constituted the crime of insurrection. It was the first time in almost three decades that South Korean justice ruled against a former head of state for that charge (which can even carry the death penalty), and placed his name next to that of the dictator Chu Doo-hwan, sentenced in 1996.
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Source: This article was originally published in another language by Internacional en EL PAÍS and has been translated and adapted for our global English-speaking audience. Read the original article here.