September 25, 2025
SEOUL – Former first lady Kim Keon Hee on Wednesday denied all charges as her criminal trial opened on allegations of stock manipulation, influence-peddling in the 2022 by-elections, and bribery.
Kim entered the courtroom of the Seoul Central District Court wearing a badge displaying her inmate number, 4398.
Kim’s hearing, the first with a former first lady as a defendant, was open to the press, with the court granting reporters permission to take photographs before the session began, but not during the proceedings.
Standing in the defendant’s seat, the former first lady briefly responded, “I am unemployed,” when her occupation was asked by the judge. When asked for her date of birth during the identification process, she answered “Sept. 2, 1972.”
She added that she did not wish to have a jury trial.
She is accused of conspiring with the former head of BMW dealer Deutsch Motors and an associate to inflate the company’s stock price between 2010 and 2012, generating 810 million won ($581,000) in illegal profits.
She is also accused of receiving opinion-polling services worth 270 million won for free ahead of the 2022 presidential election in exchange for help from a political broker in securing a parliamentary nomination for a former People Power Party lawmaker. Another charge involves luxury gifts valued at 80 million won from a Unification Church official, delivered through a shaman, allegedly tied to requests for favors.
The charges include violations of the Capital Markets Act, the Political Funds Act and a law prohibiting the acceptance of bribes for mediation. A special counsel has asked the court to freeze her assets pending the outcome of the trial.
The former first lady’s legal representatives insisted that the prosecution, which investigated the case before the special counsel was launched, had decided not to indict Kim due to a lack of evidence that she conspired or participated in the stock manipulation scheme.
The attorneys said Kim neither took part in the candidate nomination process nor received any luxury handbags from the former high-ranking official of the Unification Church, surnamed Yoon.
After a 40-minute hearing, the court scheduled another preparatory hearing to arrange the witness examination schedule on Sept. 26.
As defendants are not obligated to attend the preparatory hearing, Kim is not expected to appear.
Formal hearings will be held twice a week starting Oct. 15.
Kim’s husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, also faces a trial on separate charges related to his failed attempt to impose martial law last December.
A special counsel on Wednesday asked a court to allow live television coverage of Yoon’s upcoming trial.
Yoon, already on trial on charges of leading an insurrection with the December martial law decree, is scheduled to appear Friday at the Seoul Central District Court for the opening hearing in a separate case. He is accused of violating Cabinet members’ rights and producing a falsified version of his martial law decree.
Immediately after that hearing, Yoon is expected to attend a bail hearing at the same court.
“We applied for broadcast (permission) after fully considering the people’s right to know,” assistant special counsel Park Ji-young told reporters.
The request covers live broadcasts of both of Friday’s hearings.
