Former First Lady indicted on corruption, bribery charges

Yonhap, Philippine News Agency

FILE: Former President Yoon Suk Yeol and former first lady Kim Keon Hee depart for APEC summit on November 15, 2025. (Photo by Republic of Korea from Seoul/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

SEOUL – Former First Lady Kim Keon Hee was formally indicted Friday on multiple corruption and bribery charges, making her the first spouse of a former South Korean president to face trial under custody.

The special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki announced Kim, wife of ousted ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, was indicted with physical detention for violating the Capital Market Act, the Political Funds Act, and the law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation.

Prosecutors accused her of conspiring with the former head of Deutsch Motors, a local BMW dealer, and an associate to manipulate stock prices between 2010 and 2012, earning 810 million won (USD582,000) in illegal profits.

She allegedly received 270 million won worth of free opinion polls with her husband ahead of the 2022 presidential election in exchange for ensuring the nomination of a People Power Party candidate in a by-election.

Investigators also suspect she accepted luxury gifts worth 80 million won from the Unification Church through a shaman in return for business favors the same year.

The special counsel team requested that the court freeze the assets.

“I will not avoid the path given to me and quietly engage in my trial,” Kim said in a statement released by her lawyers after the indictment was announced.

“I will continue to faithfully attend questioning by the special counsel regarding any charge. I am sincerely sorry and tormented every day by this situation that has caused concern to the people. However, I will not make excuses under any circumstances.

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Kim still suggested the growing allegations against her are not entirely true.

“There is nothing I can change on my own at the moment, and new articles are pouring out every day as if they are certain facts, but I will not dodge them and will look into them carefully.”

The indictment was filed two days before her pretrial arrest expires, keeping her in custody for another six months at most.

Her detention could be extended in the event the special counsel obtains a new arrest warrant on additional charges before the six-month period is up.

The team placed her under arrest on Aug. 12 after obtaining a warrant on the same charges as those listed in the indictment.

Kim’s indictment makes her and her husband the first former presidential couple to stand trial under arrest simultaneously, as Yoon is also jailed and being tried on insurrection charges over his failed attempt to impose martial law in December. (Yonhap)