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Ex-first lady arrives for 1st questioning session with special counsel since detention

Published: 14 Aug. 2025, 13:04

LIM JEONG-WON
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Former first lady Kim Keon Hee leaves Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul on Aug. 12, after an arrest warrant hearing. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee, who is in pretrial detention, arrived at the office of the special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki in the KT Gwanghwunmun Building in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Thursday to be questioned.

At around 8:38 a.m. Thursday, Kim left the Seoul Southern Detention Center in Guro District, southern Seoul, in a Justice Ministry transport vehicle. She boarded the vehicle in handcuffs.

Under the Act on the Execution of Sentences and Treatment of Inmates, pretrial detainees are allowed to wear personal clothing during questioning instead of prison uniforms, and Kim appeared in civilian attire.

The vehicle transporting Kim arrived at the special counsel’s office at around 9:52 a.m. It entered through an underground parking lot, and no press photo line was set up.

The special counsel team was scheduled to begin questioning Kim at 10 a.m. It would be her second time facing the team — the first was on Aug. 6 — and her first since being detained on Tuesday. The questioning was expected to focus on allegations that she was involved in meddling in a party nomination connected to political "broker" Myung Tae-kyun.

The nomination meddling allegations center on claims that former President Yoon Suk Yeol and Kim provided Myung with the results of opinion polls free of charge on 58 occasions, in exchange for influencing the nomination of former People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Kim Young-sun in the June 1, 2022, parliamentary by-election.

A vehicle ridden by former first lady Kim Keon Hee is seen entering the special counsel office building in Jongno District, central Seoul on Aug. 14. [NEWS1]

An audio recording released to the public contained Yoon saying to Myung on May 9, 2022 — the day before the PPP announced its by-election nominations — “Kim Young-sun worked hard since the primary, so I told them to give it to her, but there’s a lot of talk inside the party. I’ll speak to Yoon Sang-hyun one more time. He’s the head of the nomination committee.”

Kim also faces allegations that between April and August 2022, she accepted illicit requests through Jeon Seong-bae, a shaman known as Geon Jin, from the Unification Church on church-related issues; that she participated as a financier in the stock price manipulation case involving Deutsch Motors between 2009 and 2012; and that she received gifts, including a necklace presented during a NATO tour in 2022 — which was shown as evidence during her pretrial detention hearing.

Other allegations still under investigation include involvement in stock manipulation connected to Sampyo Construction, suspected changes to the route of the Yangpyeong Expressway and alleged development favors in the Yangpyeong Gongheung District. The special counsel team may summon Kim for questioning multiple more times.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom staff.
BY JEONG HYE-JEONG,LIM JEONG-WON [[email protected]]