The wife of South Korea’s imprisoned former President Yoon Suk Yeol has been arrested as investigators attempt to prosecute her with several alleged offenses such as bribery, stock manipulation, and interfering in candidate selection.
The Seoul Central District Court granted a special prosecutor’s plea for an arrest warrant late Tuesday, citing Kim Keon Hee’s risk of destroying evidence.
The inquiry against Kim is one of three special prosecutor probes undertaken by Seoul’s new liberal government to target the president of Yoon, a conservative who was removed from office in April and rearrested last month for briefly imposing martial law in December.
Although Yoon and Kim are the first former presidential couple to be imprisoned concurrently on criminal charges, their self-inflicted downfall prolonged a decades-long streak of South Korean presidencies ending unhappily.
Yoon portrayed the liberals as “anti-state” forces exploiting their legislative majority to thwart his goals, and his unexpected but ill-thought-out power grab on December 3 coincided with what appeared to be a typical standoff.
Kim did not speak to reporters as she arrived at the Seoul court Tuesday for an hours-long hearing on the warrant request.
She is being held at a detention center in southern Seoul, separate from the facility holding Yoon.
She is expected to face further questioning on Thursday by investigators, who can extend her detention for up to 20 days before formally filing charges.
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The investigation team led by Special Prosecutor Min Joong-ki, who was appointed in June by new liberal President Lee Jae Myung, initially questioned Kim for about seven hours on Wednesday last week before deciding to seek her arrest.
Investigators suspect that Kim and Yoon exerted undue influence on the conservative People Power Party to nominate a specific candidate in a 2022 legislative by-election, allegedly at the request of election broker Myung Tae-kyun.
Kim is separately linked to multiple corruption allegations, including claims that she received luxury gifts via a fortuneteller acting as an intermediary for a Unification Church official seeking business favors, and possible involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme tied to a local BMW dealership company.
The investigators also raided a construction company on Monday over allegations that its chairman purchased a luxury necklace reportedly worth $43,000, which they believe was the same one Kim wore while accompanying Yoon on a 2022 trip to Europe.
While in office, Yoon dismissed calls to investigate his wife as baseless political attacks and vetoed multiple bills from the liberal-led legislature seeking independent probes into the allegations.
New President Lee Jae Myung signed legislation to begin extensive special investigations into Yoon’s martial law fiasco, the accusations against his wife, and the drowning death of a marine during a flood rescue operation in 2023—an incident that liberals say Yoon’s government attempted to conceal—shortly after winning the June early presidential election.
A quorum of parliament broke past a barricade of highly armed troops and voted to annul Yoon’s martial law declaration, which was lifted after just a few hours.
The Constitutional Court formally ousted him from office in April after parliament impeached him on December 14.
Yoon, who was sent back to prison last month following a March release and faces a high-stakes trial on rebellion and other charges, has repeatedly resisted investigators’ attempts to compel him to answer questions about his wife.
