Wife of S. Korea's ex-president Yoon appeals against 20-month prison sentence

SEOUL -- Kim Keon-hee, wife of the impeached former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, filed an appeal against her 20-month prison sentence, Yonhap news agency said Monday.

The legal team of Kim, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison with a forfeiture of 12.81 million won (about 8,780 US dollars) for corruption charges, submitted the notice of appeal to the Seoul court.

The court charged Kim with receiving valuables from Unification Church officials in return for favorable treatment of the religious group in 2022. Meanwhile, the court found her not guilty of the charges of violating the Capital Markets Act and the political funds act.

On Friday, the team of special counsel Min Joong-ki, who led the investigation into corruption allegations involving Yoon and his wife, filed an appeal against the court ruling, saying the court failed to properly recognize Kim's alleged role as a joint offender.

The special counsel demanded a 15-year jail term with a fine of 2 billion won and about 948 million won in forfeitures.

Kim was indicted under 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.

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.