South Korea: Court Allows Live Broadcast Of Ruling On Ex-First Lady's Corruption Case

(MENAFN- IANS) Seoul, Jan 27 (IANS) A South Korean court on Tuesday allowed live broadcasts of this week's ruling on the corruption and bribery case of former first lady Kim Keon Hee.

The Seoul Central District Court said it accepted broadcasters' request to air the verdict, which will be delivered at a hearing scheduled for 2:10 p.m. Wednesday, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The court typically allows live broadcasts in consideration of the public interest.

Special counsel Min Joong-ki's team has requested a 15-year prison term for Kim on charges of violating the Capital Market Act, the Political Funds Act and a law on the acceptance of bribes for mediation.

The wife of ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol is accused of conspiring with a former head of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea, as well as a close associate, to manipulate the company's stock price and make 810 million won ($559,000) in illegal profits between 2010 and 2012.

Kim is also suspected of receiving free opinion polls worth 270 million won, together with her husband, from a self-proclaimed power broker ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

The opinion polls were allegedly conducted in exchange for the nomination of former People Power Party Representative Kim Young-sun for a parliamentary by-election later that year.

Additionally, the former first lady is accused of conspiring with a shaman to receive luxury gifts worth 80 million won from a Unification Church official in 2022, along with requests for business favours.

Kim has been held in custody over the charges since August 12.

Her husband is also jailed and standing trial on insurrection and other charges over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024.

On January 16, former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to five years in prison on charges that included the obstruction of investigators' attempt to detain him last year.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the sentence in the first ruling on charges stemming from Yoon's short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024.

Chief among the charges in Friday's case was that the then-president had ordered the Presidential Security Service to block investigators from executing a warrant to detain him at the official presidential residence in January last year.

Judge Baek Dae-hyun, the presiding judge, chastised Yoon during the hearing attended by the jailed former president and televised live.

“He effectively privatised the armed forces through the public servants of the Presidential Security Service who are loyal to the Republic of Korea for his personal safety and interests,” he said.

“Considering the need to restore the rule of law damaged by the defendant's crimes, a severe punishment that matches the guilt is necessary.”

The sentence was half of what special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team had requested last month, saying the former president committed a "grave crime" by "privatising" state institutions with the aim of concealing and justifying his criminal acts.

In addition to obstructing his detention, Yoon was accused of violating the rights of nine Cabinet members who were not called to a meeting to review his martial law plan, and drafting and later destroying a revised proclamation after the martial law decree was lifted.

He was also charged with ordering the distribution of press statements containing falsehoods about the declaration and the deletion of records from secure phones used by the military commanders.

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