SEOUL, July 15 (AJP) - Former first lady Kim Keon Hee's final ruling on multiple allegations against her has been postponed until next week after the Supreme Court on Wednesday delayed its scheduled decision.
Kim, who faces several charges including the acceptance of luxury handbags and jewelry in exchange for favors, involvement in stock manipulation, and interference in candidate nominations for the 2022 local by-elections, was supposed to receive the ruling later this week.
However, the top court postponed its scheduled ruling to next Thursday after prosecutors requested more time to review the case following the sentencing of Kim's husband, disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol, to two years in prison for one of the charges he shares with Kim, receiving opinion polls from self-proclaimed power broker Myung Tae-kyun.
The disgraced couple allegedly received about 270 million South Korean won (about US$180,000) worth of opinion polls for free from Myung from June 2021 to March 2022.
Prosecutors said a careful review and sufficient deliberation are needed in Kim's case, as Yoon's prison-term sentence ran counter to the lower-court rulings, in which she was found not guilty of the poll-related charges in both her first and second trials.
Separately, Kim was found guilty of parts of the charges related to the Deutsche Motors’ stock manipulation case, as well as bribery allegations involving luxury handbags and jewelry received in exchange for favors from the Unification Church, a secretive religious sect better known as the Moonies.
In April, an appellate court sentenced her to four years in prison and fined her 50 million won.
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