South Korean ex-president Yoon's wife sentenced to 20 months in prison for bribery

SEOUL - Kim Keon-hee, wife of the impeached former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for taking bribes, live footage showed Wednesday.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down the prison sentence with a forfeiture of 12.81 million won (about 9,010 US dollars), saying Kim exploited her position as the first lady for private profit.

The court found her not guilty of the charges of violating the capital markets act and the political funds act.

Kim was charged with receiving valuables from Unification Church officials in return for favorable treatment of the religious group in 2022.

The court rejected the special counsel's claim of Kim's involvement in stock rigging, saying it was difficult to confirm her complicity even if she was aware of the stock price manipulation.

Kim was indicted while in detention in August last year on charges of her participation in the stock price manipulation between October 2010 and December 2012.

She was also charged with conspiring with Yoon to receive illegal public opinion poll results worth about 270 million won free of charge from a political broker on 58 occasions from April 2021 to March 2022 ahead of the presidential election.

The court, however, ruled that there was no evidence to prove the presidential couple's order of the opinion polls.

Apart from the ruling, Kim was indicted on charges of requesting mass enrollment of Unification Church members in the People Power Party to support a specific candidate as a party leader in the party's national convention.

She also faced charges of accepting valuables in exchange for providing business favors and selling public offices.

Kim became the first wife of a former South Korean president to be tried under detention as she has been held at a detention center since last August.