By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee apologised on Wednesday as she appeared for questioning by investigators on a string of corruption charges that plagued her husband’s term before it ended abruptly, calling herself “a nobody.”
Both Kim and ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol are under separate investigations by special prosecutors appointed after he was impeached and then removed from office for briefly declaring martial law.
Kim has been the subject of numerous high-profile scandals, some dating back more than 15 years, which overshadowed Yoon’s turbulent presidency and inflicted political damage on him and his conservative party.
“I am truly sorry that a nobody like myself has caused concern for everyone in the country,” Kim said as she entered the office of the special prosecutor. She did not answer reporters’ questions about the charges against her.
South Korea has a long history of investigations into alleged wrongdoing by high-profile figures including former presidents and family-owned conglomerate leaders. Many have made similar expressions of remorse that are not necessarily considered an admission of guilt.
Yoon, a career prosecutor who rose to the head of the powerful service before entering politics, was a senior investigator for an earlier special prosecutor’s team that jailed former President Park Geun-hye for corruption in 2017.
Kim faces a long list of charges including stock fraud, bribery and illegal influence peddling that have implicated big business owners, religious figures and a political power broker. The charges are punishable by years in prison.
Before Yoon’s election in 2022 and under intense political pressure even from his own party, Kim stood before cameras to apologise for falsifying her academic records and promised to behave as a responsible spouse of a national leader.
Allegations of wrongdoing did not fade as Yoon narrowly won the presidency and served a tumultuous term marred by a bitter row with the main opposition party which had control of parliament and kept up pressure on the first family to come clean on Kim’s personal scandals.
When hidden camera footage that appeared to show Kim accepting a Christian Dior bag as a gift, Yoon refused to say it may have been illegal or inappropriate. After a review, the state prosecutors’ office decided not to charge her.
Since Yoon’s ouster and with the appointment of special prosecutors, the probe against Kim intensified, reopening a case of stock fraud dating back to 2009 which had been previously closed by state prosecutors for insufficient cause.
The charges against her include whether she broke the law by wearing a luxury Van Cleef pendant reportedly priced more than 60 million won ($43,200) on the first couple’s trip to the NATO summit in 2022. The item was not listed in the Yoons’ financial disclosure as required by law, according to the charge.
She is also accused of receiving two Chanel bags together valued at 20 million won and a diamond necklace from a religious group as a bribe in return for influence favourable to business interests it was pursuing.
An artwork valued at several million dollars and tens of thousands of dollars in cash seized by the special prosecutor’s team are also linked to her, according to media reports that have extensively covered her travails.
In a message to reporters, Kim’s lawyers in late July denied the allegations against her and said news reports about some of the gifts she allegedly received were groundless speculation.
Yoon is on trial on insurrection charges facing up to life imprisonment or the death penalty for his failed attempt to impose military rule in December that plunged the country into a political crisis and a power vacuum that lasted six months.
Yoon has described the special prosecutor’s probe against him as a political witch hunt and since being jailed on July 10 over the risk he will try to tamper with evidence, has refused to cooperate with the investigation or attend the insurrection trial.
($1 = 1,389.1000 won)
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ju-min Park; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
