Special counsel appeals against 4-year prison sentence for S. Korea's former first lady

Alsharq Tribune-Ahmed Essam 

A special counsel team on Monday appealed to South Korea's Supreme Court against an appellate court ruling that sentenced Kim Keon-hee, wife of South Korea's former President Yoon Suk-yeol, to four years in prison over charges including stock manipulation and graft, Yonhap News Agency reported.

On April 28, the Seoul High Court overturned the lower court's ruling, increasing Kim's prison term from 20 months to four years with a fine of 50 million won (about 33,910 U.S. dollars), though the sentence fell short of the 15-year sentence sought by the special counsel team.

The appellate court overturned part of the lower court's ruling that had acquitted Kim of violating the capital market law, finding her partly guilty of involvement in the stock manipulation case.

The appellate court also found Kim fully guilty of graft charges that had been partly recognized by the lower court.

It ruled that Kim received two Chanel bags, a Graff necklace and concentrated red ginseng tea from the Unification Church from April to July 2022 in return for requests related to the religious group's pending issues.

However, the appellate court upheld the lower court's not-guilty ruling on charges that Kim and her husband received free public opinion polling services from a political broker in return for securing the nomination of Kim Young-sun, a former lawmaker of the People Power Party.

The court said the couple could not be seen as having obtained financial gains equivalent to the cost of the polls, as the broker had provided polling data not only to the couple but also to several other people.