Anchor: Former first lady Kim Keon-hee has been placed under pretrial detention as she faces allegations of stock manipulation, election meddling and bribery, after a Seoul court issued a warrant late Tuesday. On Wednesday, the special team handling the investigation conducted a search at an interior design firm hired to remodel the presidential residence in 2022.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The Seoul Central District Court issued a pretrial detention warrant for former first lady Kim Keon-hee, the wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, late Tuesday over a string of corruption allegations, citing concern over destruction of evidence.

The decision to detain Kim comes some five years after allegations first emerged of her involvement in stock manipulation at Deutsch Motors.

Since then, she has also been accused of intervening in the People Power Party’s election nominations and graft involving the Unification Church.

Kim is the only former first lady in the country’s constitutional history to be held in pretrial detention, at a time when Yoon is also behind bars for his martial law action.

Kim is in custody at the Seoul Nambu Detention Center in the city’s Guro District, and the special counsel team in charge of her case has summoned her for questioning at 10 a.m. Thursday.

The team raided a local interior design firm and other locations on Wednesday over the contract the firm secured to renovate the presidential residence, allegedly in return for having sponsored Covana Contents, an exhibition company run by Kim.

The firm, 21gram, won the no-bid contract to renovate the presidential residence after it was relocated from Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul’s Jongno District to the Hannam area in Yongsan District after Yoon took office in 2022, despite not having the proper license. 

The team also raided the headquarters of the main opposition People Power Party regarding allegations the former first couple meddled in the party’s election nominations and accepted bribes from the Unification Church in return for the opportunity to participate in state projects.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.