Seoul: Jailed former first lady Kim Keon Hee once again exercised her right to remain silent during questioning by a special counsel team on Thursday in her third session since her arrest last week, with the team set to question Kim once more on Saturday. Kim, the wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, arrived at special counsel Min Joong-ki's office in central Seoul in a prison van at around 2:12 p.m. to be questioned over corruption and bribery allegations.
According to Yonhap News Agency, a Seoul court issued a warrant for Kim's arrest last Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in a stock manipulation scheme, meddling in candidate nominations for the 2022 parliamentary by-elections and 2024 general elections, and receiving luxury gifts from the Unification Church through a shaman in exchange for business favors. During the latest session, which lasted around three hours, Kim reportedly exercised her right to remain silent to most of the team's questions, as she had done in the last two sessions on Monday and last Thursday.
Min's team plans to question Kim again over allegations of receiving gifts from the church through the shaman, identified as Jeon Seong-bae, in another session scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday. Jeon has been accused of giving Kim a diamond necklace and Chanel bags on behalf of the church between April and August 2022. Jeon allegedly delivered requests for business favors from the church along with the luxury gifts, although he has denied delivering the gifts to Kim.
In her previous session on Monday, Kim was questioned mainly on charges of interfering in candidate nominations and her alleged involvement in the stock manipulation case. Kim maintained her silence for most of the questions during that session as well.
Meanwhile, Jeon is currently awaiting a court decision on his potential arrest after he waived his right to attend a hearing to review the warrant request earlier in the day. The team also called in Lee Jong-ho, a close associate of Kim, for questioning regarding the stock manipulation case involving Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea, from 2009 to 2012.
Separately, Min's team stated it would consider taking legal action after Yoon's lawyers filed a complaint accusing the team of assault in its attempt to forcibly bring in the jailed former president for questioning on August 7. The team tried to execute a detention warrant that day to interrogate Yoon but failed after he resisted the attempt and refused to leave his cell. It marked the team's second attempt after another botched execution on August 1. Assistant special counsel Park Sang-jin criticized the complaint as being aimed at hindering the investigation, defending the team's attempt as a "lawful" execution of the warrant.