SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee and former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo were indicted Friday in special investigations that followed the ousting of the former president for imposing martial law.
The wife of jailed ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol was charged with violating financial market and political funding laws and receiving bribes, about two weeks after a court ordered her arrest.
Han was charged with abetting Yoon’s imposition of martial law imposition, which investigators say amount to a rebellion, and also falsifying and destroying official documents and lying under oath.
Three special prosecutor investigations were launched under the government of liberal President Lee Jae Myung that targeted Yoon’s presidency and the actions taken to impose martial law last December.
Yoon’s defense minister, military commanders and police officers have been arrested for their involvement in imposing martial law.
Yoon was removed from office in April and rearrested last month over his December martial law decree.
Kim and Yoon are suspected of exerting undue influence on the conservative People Power Party to nominate a specific candidate in a 2022 legislative by-election, allegedly at the request of election broker Myung Tae-kyun. Myung faces accusations of conducting free opinion surveys for Yoon using manipulated data that possibly helped him win the party’s presidential primaries before his election as president.
Kim apologized for causing public concern earlier this month but also hinted she would deny the allegations against her, portraying herself as “someone insignificant.”
Assistant special counsel Park Ji-young told a televised briefing that Han was the highest official who could have blocked Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law. Park said Han still played an “active” role in Yoon’s martial law declaration by trying to get Yoon’s decree passed through a Cabinet Council meeting as a way to give “procedural legitimacy” to it.
Han has maintained he conveyed to Yoon that he opposed his martial law plan.
Han, who was appointed prime minister, the country’s No. 2 post, by Yoon, was South Korea’s acting leader after Yoon was impeached in mid-December.
After Yoon was formally dismissed as president in a Constitutional Court decision, Han was supposed to continue to head the caretaker government until the June presidential election. Han resigned to seek the presidential nomination instead, but Yoon’s conservative party chose someone else.
