South Korea’s ex-first lady Kim Keon Hee gets seven more years in graft-linked gifts scandal

SEOUL, June 26 — A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee, already serving time for graft, to another seven years’ imprisonment today in a jobs-for-gifts scandal.

Kim, 53, was found guilty of accepting “high-value precious metals” in exchange for favours in personnel appointments, according to the livestreamed ruling.

The court said she “unhesitatingly accepted valuables of a kind that the average citizen would struggle to acquire even once in a lifetime”.

Kim is already serving a four-year sentence for stock manipulation and bribery.

She was indicted in December on additional charges including accepting jewellery worth a total of 103 million won (US$67,000).

They included a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace, a Tiffany brooch and Graff earrings, from a construction magnate in 2022.

In return, she offered to secure a position for his son-in-law.

Kim was also found guilty of accepting a gold turtle figurine worth 2.65 million won from a politician and a Vacheron Constantin wristwatch worth 39 million won from a “robot dog” business entrepreneur.

At her final trial hearing on May 15, prosecutors demanded she serve a prison sentence of seven-and-a-half years for “trading in offices and favours”.

She was accused of repeatedly accepting money and valuables by leveraging her status as the spouse of then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, himself behind bars for a short-lived and disastrous attempt to impose martial law in 2024.

Kim had maintained her innocence, arguing that while she did receive gifts, there were no requests for favours attached to them.

A self-proclaimed animal lover known for her campaigns to ban the dog-meat trade in South Korea, she was at the centre of several scandals that often eclipsed her husband’s tenure in office. — AFP