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| President Yoon Suk-yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee join a dinner party at a hotel in Madrid, Spain, June 30, to which Korean residents of Spain were invited as an event on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Newsis |
By Ko Dong-hwan
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Wednesday filed charges against President Yoon Suk-yeol for having allegedly forged the report of private assets owned by him and first lady Kim Keon-hee while he was campaigning for president leading up to the March 9 election this year.
The DPK said they filed the charges after they came to understand that three expensive jewelry pieces first lady Kim Keon-hee has been seen repeatedly wearing at public events weren't included in Yoon's private asset report. The pieces: a pendant worth 62 million won ($44,000), a brooch worth 26 million won and a bracelet worth 15 million won. According to the country's Public Official Election Act, a candidate must report his or her spouse's jewelry worth 5 million won or more as assets.
The DPK said Wednesday that the presidential office has issued explanations that two of the pieces of jewelry were borrowed and one was worth less than 5 million won but the explanations did not fully resolve the allegations they have charged Yoon of.
The party said that Kim has been seen wearing the "supposedly borrowed bracelet for several months" at public events, including at the NATO Summit in Spain in June this year, which raises the likelihood that it belongs to Kim.
"We want prosecutors to investigate and verify whether Kim really borrowed the pieces of jewelry in question," said DPK spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom. "If they are found to have been borrowed, we want to know if the lenders had any connections with Yoon and were given any kickbacks as benefits from the presidential couple. If such interests are discovered, they could lead to crimes much more serious than private asset forgery."
On the same day, the party also decided to introduce a bill mandating the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Kim over allegations of participating in stock price manipulation, falsifying her academic credentials, committing academic plagiarism and receiving kickbacks while running her former exhibition planning firm, Covana Contents.
The move is being seen as a counterattack of the party against the Yoon administration, under which prosecutors have launched an investigation of DPK leader Lee Jae-myung, who lost to Yoon in the March 9 presidential election by a razor-thin margin. DPK floor leader Rep. Park Hong-keun called the investigation "political revenge" by the Yoon administration against Lee.
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