Former South Korean First Lady Kim Keon Hee Appeals Prison Sentence

JAKARTA - Former South Korean First Lady Kim Keon Hee on Monday appealed against a court ruling that sentenced her to 20 months in prison for accepting luxury gifts from the Unification Church.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the sentence last Wednesday, making Kim and her husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, the first former presidential couple in the Ginseng Country to be imprisoned with a criminal conviction.

The court also ordered Kim to hand over 12.8 million won, while acquitting him of the other two charges he faced in the trial - involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and violation of the Political Funds Law, quoted from The Korea Times (2/2).

The sentence is much shorter than the 15-year sentence sought by special prosecutor Min Joong-ki's team, which appealed last Friday, citing a "serious" misunderstanding of the facts in the ruling.

The court found Kim guilty of accepting luxury gifts, such as a Chanel bag and a Graff diamond necklace, from the Unification Church, which asked for business assistance in 2022, but did not admit other charges.

Kim is accused of conspiring to manipulate the share price of Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in Korea, and of illegally obtaining a profit of 810 million won between 2010 and 2012.

He was also charged with violating the Political Funds Law for receiving free polls, along with his husband, from someone who claimed to be a power broker ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

The court said it could not determine that Kim acted as an accomplice in the manipulation of stock prices, while also declaring him not guilty of other charges because the power broker did not exclusively provide the couple with polls.

Meanwhile, Yoon, who is on trial for leading a rebellion through the imposition of a brief military state of emergency in 2024, has been sentenced to five years in prison for charges stemming from the failed military state of emergency attempt.