Kim Keon Hee, wife of ousted former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, has been indicted on bribery and stock fraud charges, a special prosecution team announced Friday, as investigations widen into the country’s martial law crisis and scandals involving the couple.
Both Kim and Yoon are currently in detention. Yoon is on trial for charges including insurrection after being removed from office in April, following a failed attempt to impose martial law in December. Special prosecutors, appointed after Yoon’s ouster and the inauguration of liberal President Lee Jae Myung in June, are leading the probes.
In a statement released through her lawyers, Kim apologised for “causing public concern” and pledged to face trial. “Just as moonlight shines brightly in the darkest night, I too will endure this time, looking to my truth and heart,” she said, without addressing specific allegations.
Prosecutors accuse Kim of receiving bribes from business leaders, religious figures, and a political broker, alongside her alleged role in stock manipulation. Her lawyers denied the allegations, dismissing reports about gifts as “groundless speculation.”
Kim’s public image has deteriorated sharply since Yoon’s martial law order in December, eroding the influence she once wielded as a wealthy businesswoman and political partner to her husband.
On the same day, prosecutors also indicted former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, a Yoon appointee, on charges of abetting insurrection and perjury. Prosecution spokesperson Park Ji-young said Han, who briefly served as acting president after Yoon’s impeachment, “was the highest constitutional institution that could have stopped the president’s unconstitutional, illegitimate martial law.”
Han, a career technocrat who served under five presidents, was later impeached himself over the crisis but had the ruling overturned by the Constitutional Court. He resigned earlier this year after a failed attempt to contest the June presidential election.
