South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges.
Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said.
Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old.
Photo: EPA
The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out Kim’s alleged “unlawful acts.”
Prosecutors said they raided the People Power Party office to collect evidence of Kim’s alleged meddling in parliamentary elections.
Yoon quit the party in May after his removal from office, but endorsed its candidate in the snap presidential election that was won by the Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung.
Opposition leader Song Eon-seog slammed the raid as “nothing short of gangster behavior.”
“I cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae-myung administration’s ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution,” Song told a news conference.
With the arrest, South Korea now has a former president and first lady both behind bars for the first time in the nation’s history.
The charges against Kim include contraventions of capital market and financial investment laws, as well as political funds laws.
The arrest caps a dramatic fall for the former first couple after Yoon’s stunning martial law declaration on Dec. 3 last year, which saw soldiers deployed to parliament, but was swiftly voted down by opposition lawmakers.
Yoon, a former top prosecutor, was impeached and removed from office in April over the declaration, prompting the country to hold a snap election in June.
He has been in detention since July 10.
Last week, Kim underwent hours-long questioning by prosecutors, who filed for an arrest warrant the next day.
“I sincerely apologize for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance,” she said as she arrived at the prosecutors’ office yesterday.
Controversy has long surrounded Kim, with lingering questions about her alleged role in stock manipulation.
Public criticism was reignited in 2022 when a left-wing pastor filmed himself presenting her with a Dior handbag that she appeared to accept.
She has also been accused of interfering in the nomination process for lawmakers in Yoon’s party, a contravention of election laws.
Yoon, as president, vetoed three special investigation bills passed by the opposition-controlled parliament that sought to probe the allegations against Kim, with the last veto issued in late November last year.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS