SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges.<\/p>\n
Former first lady Kim Keon Hee was arrested late Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Her arrest came hours after Seoul Central District Court reviewed the prosecutors\u2019 request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old.<\/p>\n
The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out Kim\u2019s alleged \u201cunlawful acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Wednesday they raided the People Power Party office to collect evidence of Kim\u2019s alleged meddling in parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n
Yoon quit the party in May after his removal from office but endorsed its candidate in the snap presidential election that was won by the Democratic Party\u2019s Lee Jae Myung.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Song Eon-seog slammed the raid as \u201cnothing short of gangster behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae Myung administration\u2019s ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution,\u201d Song said at a news briefing.<\/p>\n
With the arrest, South Korea now has a former president and first lady both behind bars for the first time in the nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
The charges against Kim include violations of capital market and financial investment laws, as well as political funds laws.<\/p>\n
The arrest caps a dramatic fall for the former first couple after Yoon\u2019s stunning martial law declaration on December 3, which saw soldiers deployed to parliament but was swiftly voted down by opposition MPs.<\/p>\n
Yoon, a former top prosecutor, was impeached and removed from office in April over the martial law declaration, prompting the country to hold a snap election in June.<\/p>\n
He has been in detention since July 10.<\/p>\n
Last week, Kim underwent hours-long questioning by prosecutors, who filed for an arrest warrant the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sincerely apologize for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance,\u201d Kim said as she arrived at the prosecutors\u2019 office on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Controversy has long surrounded Kim, with lingering questions about her alleged role in stock manipulation.<\/p>\n
Public criticism was reignited in 2022 when a left-wing pastor filmed himself presenting her with a Dior handbag that she appeared to accept.<\/p>\n
She is also accused of interfering in the nomination process for MPs in Yoon\u2019s party, a violation of election laws.<\/p>\n
Yoon, as president, vetoed three special investigation bills passed by the opposition-controlled parliament that sought to probe the allegations against Kim, with the last veto issued in late November.<\/p>\n
A week later, Yoon declared martial law.<\/p>\n
Investigators also searched an interior company allegedly linked to Kim in connection with suspected favoritism in repairs to the presidential office.<\/p>\n
While she would typically have been held at the same detention center as her husband, prosecutors on Monday requested that she be detained at a separate facility about 20 kilometers (13 miles) away.<\/p>\n
Her Presidential Security Service protection was terminated once the warrant was issued.<\/p>\n
Kim can be held for up to 20 days as prosecutors prepare to formally indict her, legal expert Kim Nam-ju told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce Kim is indicted, she could remain detained for up to six months,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
The former first lady can challenge the warrant in court as unlawful, \u201cbut given the current circumstances, there appears to be a high risk of evidence destruction, making it unlikely that the warrant will be revoked and the individual released,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother option is bail, but this too is not granted if there are concerns about the destruction of evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon Hee was arrested late Tuesday on a range of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85325,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85323\/revisions\/85325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}