First lady Kim Keon Hee (center) salutes to the national flag at President Yoon Suk Yeol's meeting with overseas Koreans in Manila, the Philippines, held on the sidelines of his state visit to the country on Oct. 6. (Yonhap)
The South Korean prosecution on Thursday announced it would not indict first lady Kim Keon Hee for her alleged involvement in a 63.6 billion won ($46.6 million) investment fraud case, effectively clearing her remaining legal risks.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said in a press release it would not pursue charges against the first lady as there was a lack of evidence that Kim had been aware of what was found to be a pump-and-dump scheme when trading stocks of the targeted companies in the early 2010's.
With Thursday's decision, all criminal cases concerning Kim have closed.
The decision came years after a criminal complaint was filed against Kim in April 2020. The prosecution carried out a closed-door interrogation of Kim in July. No first lady in South Korea's modern history has been put to a court trial.
The prosecution found six accounts owned by Kim with records of trading the targeted stocks involved in the investment fraud.
One of them was highly disputed, as Kim was found to have sought investment proceeds soon after a phone call with Kwon Oh-soo, the convicted former chair of listed import car distributor Deutsche Motors and a key figure behind the investment fraud.
Prosecutors said there was no proof that Kim had been aware of Kwon's involvement in the scheme at the time of the phone conversation. It also noted that Kim went on to trade stocks following the phone call because she "trusted" Kwon, adding Kim was unlikely to predict that the head of a publicly traded company had masterminded an investment fraud that involved his own company.
Kwon was handed a three-year suspended sentence in an appellate court ruling in September.
The prosecution also acquitted Kim regarding the rest of her accounts, either due to the statute of limitations, a weak connection to the fraud or a lack of evidence that Kim was aware of her trust account managers' involvement in the pump-and-dump scheme.
The decision contrasts that regarding a man, identified only by his surname Son, who was found guilty in a September court ruling of aiding and abetting the stock manipulation crime by entrusting his accounts to the scammers. The court ruling overturned the lower court's decision that had acquitted Son. The prosecution said that, unlike Kim's case, it was evident Son had been associated with the scammers.
President Yoon Suk Yeol told reporters in December 2021 during his presidential election campaign that his wife had "taken losses amounting to tens of millions of won in the trades," but according to the prosecution on Thursday, Kim and her mother had actually gained 2.3 billion won from trades connected to the fraud.
Thursday's announcement prompted an outcry from the liberal opposition party, as the Democratic Party of Korea had floated a special counsel bill to investigate the president's wife that same day. Similar bills have already been vetoed twice in Yoon's term since May 2022, as the party twice failed to override the veto afterward.
Rep. Jo Seoung-lae, senior spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea, said Thursday that vindication will become the impetus behind renewed calls for a special counsel investigation through new legislation, saying the public will no longer fall for the prosecution's claims of justice.
Probes targeting Kim are also underway at the independent investigative agency, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, surrounding alleged antigraft rule violations as well as her alleged influence-peddling in the ruling People Power Party's electorate candidate selection process ahead of the April general election.
Earlier on Oct. 2, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office closed another case concerning Kim's alleged antigraft law violation in the high-profile "Dior bag scandal," in which Kim had received a luxury Christian Dior handbag as seen caught in footage by a spy camera.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office was scheduled to undergo a parliamentary audit on Friday.
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