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  • South Korea’s former first lady gets 20 months’ jail for bribery

    South Korea’s former first lady gets 20 months’ jail for bribery


    The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president has been sentenced to 20 months in jail for accepting bribes from the controversial Unification Church.

    However, the court cleared 52-year-old Kim Keon Hee on charges of stock price manipulation and receiving free opinion polls from a political broker before the 2022 presidential election, which her husband Yoon Suk Yeol won.

    Yoon has already been sentenced to five years’ in jail for abusing power and obstructing justice in relation to his failed martial law bid in 2024.

    This marks the first time in South Korea’s history that a former presidential couple are convicted at the same time.

    On Wednesday, Judge Woo In-sung at the Seoul Central District Court ruled that Kim had “misused her position as a means of pursuing personal gain”.

    “The higher [one’s] position, the more consciously one must guard against such conduct… The defendant failed to reject solicitations and was preoccupied with self-adornment,” the judge said.

    A special counsel team appointed to the case said Kim received 80m ($56,000; £40,600) won of gifts, which include a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel handbags, from the Unification Chruch between April and July 2022, in exchange for business and political favours.

    The team had sought a 15-year jail term and a fine of 2 billion won for all three charges heard on Wednesday – for which Kim was convicted of one – but the judge noted that Kim was not the one who demanded or solicited the bribes, and that she had “no significant criminal record”.

    She was however ordered to pay back 12.85 million won in cash and the court also ordered the confiscation of the diamond necklace.

    Kim has also been charged over her alleged involvement in a scheme to recruit Unification Church followers to the conservative People Power Party that her husband was part of, and accepting gifts in exchange for government job appointments. The court has yet to hear those cases.

    The former first lady had denied all charges, saying they were “deeply unjust”, although she did admit to receiving Chanel bags, which she said she later returned without using.

    She made a public apology when she appeared for questioning last August. “I am truly sorry that a nobody like me has caused concern to the people,” she said.

    Investigations into Kim’s dealings with the Unification Church had also led to the arrest of church leader Han Hak-ja.

    Apart from the criminal allegations, Kim has also been the subject of other controversies. Last year, Sookmyung Women’s University annulled an art education degree she graduated with in 1999, after an ethics panel found she had plagiarised her master’s thesis.

    Additional reporting by Leehyun Choi in Seoul



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  • Who is South Korea’s former first lady?

    Who is South Korea’s former first lady?


    Gavin Butlerand

    Hyojung Kim,BBC World Service

    Getty Images A woman in a black suit, face mask and glasses is escorted into a court by a police officer who is holding her by the arm. Four men in suits sit at a table behind themGetty Images

    The scandals Kim Keon Hee faces predate her husband Yoon’s ill-fated political career

    Two Chanel handbags, a BMW dealership and a controversial church were at the centre of a trial faced by South Korea’s former first lady, Kim Keon Hee.

    The wife of disgraced former president Yoon Suk Yeol, she was arrested in August over a raft of charges including bribery, stock manipulation, and political interference – all of which she denies.

    Prosecutors had accused Kim, 52, of making more than 800 million won ($552,570; £404,050) by participating in a price-rigging scheme involving the stocks of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea, between October 2010 and December 2012.

    She was also accused of accepting luxury bags, a diamond necklace and other gifts worth up to 80m won as bribes from the controversial Unification Church in exchange for business favours, and receiving 58 free opinion polls, worth 270 million Korean won, from political broker Myung Tae-kyun before the 2022 presidential election.

    On Wednesday, a court found her guilty of accepting bribes from Unification Church officials, sentencing her to 20-months in jail.

    However, she was cleared on charges of stock price manipulation and violating South Korea’s campaign financing laws. There are still two cases against her that the court is yet to hear.

    The verdict comes less than a fortnight after her husband was sentenced to jail for abusing power and obstructing justice in relation to his failed martial law bid.

    It also marks the first time in history that a presidential spouse has been indicted while detained.

    But it is far from the first time Kim herself has been embroiled in controversy.

    Questionable credentials

    Before she was South Korea’s first lady, Kim Keon Hee – born Kim Myeong-sin – was a businesswoman and art lover.

    She graduated with an art education degree from Sookmyung Women’s University in 1999, but would later face repeated allegations of plagiarism over her time as a student there – leading the university to annul her degree in 2025 after its research ethics panel found her thesis was compromised.

    She has never commented on these allegations publicly.

    In 2009, she founded art exhibition company Covana Contents, for which she is still CEO and president – but in 2019 South Korean media reported that she had allegedly evaded paying taxes and received kickbacks for hosting art exhibitions.

    Kim, who has stood down from her role, was cleared of these charges in 2023, but the special counsel is currently re-examining the case.

    Then, ahead of the 2022 presidential election which her husband ultimately won, allegations emerged that Kim had submitted applications to universities and companies containing false qualifications and awards, sparking a scandal over potentially fabricated credentials.

    In response to these allegations, which some opposition members had sought to use as a political cudgel against Yoon, Kim issued a public apology for what she described as “exaggerations” on her resume.

    She further pledged that if her husband became president she would “focus solely on my role as his wife”.

    It is her conduct while in that role, however, that has drawn some of the fiercest backlash.

    The handbag scandal

    In late-2023, spy camera footage surfaced showing Kim receiving a luxury handbag from an individual in a Seoul office in September 2022.

    The footage was reported to have been secretly filmed by the pastor Choi Jae-young using a camera embedded in his watch – and its publication intensified public scrutiny on both Kim and Yoon.

    It appeared to show Mr Choi walking to a store to purchase the greyish-blue calfskin bag, with a receipt putting its cost at 3 million won ($2,200; £1,800). Mr Choi then visits Covana Contents, a company in Seoul owned by the first lady, where Ms Kim then asks the pastor: “Why do you keep bringing me these things?”

    South Korean law makes it illegal for public officials and their spouses to receive gifts worth more than 1 million won in one go, or a total of 3 million won within a fiscal year.

    And while the video did not explicitly show Ms Kim accepting the gift, the Korea Herald reported at the time that the presidential office confirmed receipt of the bag and said that it was “being managed and stored as a property of the government”.

    Getty Images Yoon Suk Yeol walking in front of his wife Kim Keon HeeGetty Images

    Yoon Suk Yeol and Kim Keon Hee mark the first time both a former president and former first lady have been jailed

    The presidential office did not immediately respond to the coverage, further fuelling the controversy, as civic groups filed complaints with the prosecution citing potential violations of the Anti-Graft Act.

    This incident was one of 16 allegations looked into by the special counsel team, 12 of which were passed to police for further investigation.

    Wednesday’s verdict, however, focused on Kim allegedly accepting other bribes from the Unification Church, as well as her alleged involvement in Deutsch Motors stock manipulation and alleged election meddling.

    Kim denied the charges – although she did admit to receiving Chanel bags, which she says she later returned without using.

    Prosecutors had last month called for a 15-year prison term and a fine of 2 billion won, saying she had “stood above the law” and colluded with the Unification Church to undermine the “constitutionally mandated separation of religion and state”.

    Disgrace

    While Kim’s string of scandals cast a shadow over her husband’s presidential career, it was Yoon himself who ultimately sealed his own fate as one of South Korea’s most disgraced former leaders.

    On 16 January, Yoon was found guilty of abuse of power, falsifying documents and obstructing justice when he tried and failed to impose martial law in the country in 2024. He has also been sentenced to five years in jail.

    It was the first of the verdicts in four trials linked to Yoon’s shock martial law decree. Although short-lived, the move triggered nationwide turmoil, sparking protests as MPs rushed to the national assembly to overturn Yoon’s decision.

    Yoon’s actions “plunged the country into political crisis”, a judge said while delivering the verdict, noting that Yoon had “consistently shown no remorse”.

    It was during a year-long probe into Yoon’s failed martial law attempt that special prosecutors started investigating many of the allegations against Kim.

    Together, the once-powerful-couple make a historic pair: while South Korea has a history of former presidents being indicted and imprisoned, Yoon and Kim mark the first time both a former president and former first lady have been jailed.



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  • Trump says government will ‘de-escalate a little bit’ in Minnesota after Pretti shooting

    Trump says government will ‘de-escalate a little bit’ in Minnesota after Pretti shooting


    President Donald Trump said his administration was “going to de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota, after the second fatal shooting of a US citizen by federal immigration officers there.

    “Bottom line, it was terrible. Both of them were terrible,” he said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.

    In early January Renee Good was fatally shot by an immigration officer, followed by Alex Pretti, who was killed after being stopped by border agents this past weekend.

    Pretti’s death reignited local protests and public outcry across the country, and led to criticism from lawmakers in both parties. Trump’s remarks are the latest sign his administration is taking a step back on its operations in Minnesota.

    Speaking to other reporters ahead of a rally in Iowa Tuesday night, Trump said he viewed the killing of Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a veterans’ hospital, as “a very unfortunate incident”.

    Asked by reporters about whether he agreed with characterisations of Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” Trump said: “I haven’t heard that.”

    Trump then added: “He shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said shortly after the shooting that Pretti “wasn’t there to peacefully protest, he was there to perpetuate violence,” and accused him of “domestic terrorism”.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also said the agents fired in self-defence, after Pretti resisted attempts to disarm him.

    Noem said Pretti was shot because he was “brandishing” a gun during a confrontation, but local authorities said the gun was legally registered and that Pretti was shot after the firearm was removed.

    Eyewitnesses and local officials, however, have challenged that account, saying he had a phone in his hand, not a weapon.

    A preliminary report drafted by Customs and Border Protection also appears to contradict the initial DHS account of events. It says two of its agents fired their weapons at Pretti.

    It does not mention that Pretti was reaching for his firearm, according to a copy of the report seen by the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

    On Monday, the DHS pulled the Minnesota mission’s leader and figurehead, Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, from the state. The department said it was deploying the White House’s border tsar, Tom Homan, to take over there.

    Homan posted on social media on Tuesday that he had met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and local law enforcement officials.

    Pretti’s death, coming two weeks after the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, enraged local residents and sparked fresh calls from state and city officials for the Trump administration to withdraw its 3,000 immigration agents and officers from the region.

    In the interview with Fox News, Trump appeared to defend the Minnesota operation, saying “we took thousands of hardened criminals” out of the state, “so they have good crime numbers.”

    “That’s all working out, we have Tom Homan there now,” he said, before adding the administration would “de-escalate”.

    Stephen Miller, a top White House aide working on the administration’s deportation initiative, told CNN that the White House “provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors”.

    “We are evaluating why the [US Customs and Border Patrol] team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said in his statement to CNN.

    Some Republican leaders and lawmakers have called for an investigation into Pretti’s death, including Vermont Governor Phil Scott and US Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.

    “The nation witnessed a horrifying situation this weekend,” Ricketts wrote on X. While he reaffirmed his “support for funding ICE remains the same,” Ricketts said he expected “a prioritized, transparent investigation into this incident”.

    A federal judge has blocked DHS from destroying or altering evidence.

    In his speech at the Iowa rally on Tuesday night, which was dedicated to his economic policies, Trump did not discuss the current situation in Minnesota in-depth, but talked about his immigration crackdown more broadly, citing a Harvard Harris poll from December that suggested 80% of Americans support his administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.



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