South Korea's former first lady arrested after court issues warrant on corruption charges
The arrest, which came after a Seoul central district court ruling, creates an unprecedented situation in which both members of a former presidential couple are simultaneously in custody.
The court granted the warrant citing the risk of tampering with evidence, according to Yonhap news agency. 'The arrest warrant against Kim has been issued,' the prosecutors said in a brief statement.
The charges against Kim include violations of capital market and financial investment laws, as well as political funds laws. She denies the charges.
Yoon Suk Yeol was sent back into detention in July as prosecutors investigate his failed attempt to impose martial law in December last year.
A special counsel was established after Lee Jae Myung was elected president in June to investigate 16 criminal allegations against Kim. However, Wednesday's arrest warrant covered only three charges.
Prosecutors allege she made over 800 million won (£428,000) through manipulating the stock prices of Deutsch Motors, a local BMW dealership, between 2009 and 2012, by conspiring with others to artificially inflate shares.
She is also accused of receiving over 270 million won worth of illegal political funding through free opinion polling services, and using this to influence candidate selections for the conservative People Power party in the country's 2022 byelections.
The third charge involves accepting luxury gifts including Chanel handbags and expensive jewellery from the Unification Church through a shaman intermediary, in exchange for favourable treatment of development projects in Cambodia.
Kim was questioned for over seven hours by investigators last week before the arrest warrant was sought.
On issuing the warrant, judge Jeong Jae-wook cited 'concerns about evidence destruction' as the primary reason for detention, according to Yonhap News. Kim had spent four and a half hours in court, where she denied all charges against her.
During the hearing, Kim reportedly expressed frustration about her personal affairs being scrutinised, telling the judge she was 'upset that even issues from before my marriage keep being brought up'.
She will be held at Nambu detention centre in south-western Seoul, separate from her husband, who has been in custody at Seoul detention centre since July.
Once considered to wield enormous influence behind the scenes during her husband's presidency, the former arts exhibition company executive was embroiled in a series of issues throughout his term, including the infamous Dior bag scandal, which prosecutors are now also reinvestigating.
In recent weeks, her master's and doctoral degrees were both revoked over thesis plagiarism.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
43 minutes ago
- Times
Air con has become a political hot potato
I've just come back from Vietnam, where it was hot. So hot. Running through my head, often, I'd hear Robin Williams's monologue from Good Morning, Vietnam — which, of course, I watched while there — in which he channels a grunt in the jungle giving a weather report, saying, 'It's hot! Damn hot!' and musing that he could cook a meal in the crotch of his own shorts. 'Fool, I told you again! It's hot! Were you born on the sun?' In those conditions, you venture out like a moon explorer, boldly embarking on missions to temples and markets, before returning gratefully to the blessing of ubiquitous, essential, air conditioning. It's funny, but they didn't have much air con when I backpacked around Asia in my twenties. I kept telling my kids that, probably quite smugly and boringly. Before, obviously, turning it on. Back home, it is also hot. Less hot, but still. Is this our third heatwave of 2025, or our fourth? Or fifth? I forget. In France, it has been far hotter. On Wednesday, it was 33C in Paris, and that was relatively low. In Nîmes it was 43C, up there with the Middle East. In France, air con is now a huge political fight. Earlier this summer, Marine Le Pen announced a 'major air-conditioning equipment plan' if her party ever takes power. In response, her opponents on the left have deemed air conditioning not just pathetic and environmentally dangerous but also fundamentally un-French, like, I suppose, toasters or toilets that have seats. It fell to the French environment minister to point out that more air con means more energy use, which means more global warming, which means more heatwaves. 'The government wants ordinary people to suffer the heat while the so-called French elites benefit from air conditioning,' retorted Le Pen; a silly populist response rendered somehow all the more maddening for being absolutely true. As an environmentalist, I know which side of this fight I ought to be on. You might have spotted, though, that I'm the sort of environmentalist who just flew back from a family holiday in Vietnam. My point being, it's best to be honest. Instinctively, I suppose I do still nurse a prejudice that air con is one of those weird things Americans do, like saying 'aluminum' and putting too much ice in drinks. Few things irritate me more than its growing and pointless ubiquity in British hotels, especially when they nail the windows shut. But would I live in Florida without it? Would you? What's more, I'm naggingly aware that I'm writing this very column in a nice, air-conditioned office, having decided I didn't much fancy a sweaty afternoon at home. Le Pen would have me bang to rights. • France swelters without air conditioning as chilling out gets political What this means, depressingly, is that the environmental left's denunciation of air con is two things at once: utterly correct and entirely deranged. You can't possibly tell hot people that they're not allowed to cool down because, if you do, first they'll laugh at you, then they'll hate you, and then they'll ignore you anyway. Just like, when push comes to shove, you're probably ignoring yourself. Hardly anybody wants to properly champion environmental politics these days. Even the Greens are happier talking about Gaza. Really, it's just Ed Miliband, and I'm sure he does it mainly out of masochism. And yet, despite this, undeniably, we live at a time when climate change is no longer some distant future fear but an actual, identifiable phenomenon we are living through, right are wildfires not only in southern Europe, but also in Edinburgh. There have been weeks of 30-degree weather even in Norway. This week has brought record temperatures to Croatia, Hungary and Canada. I mentioned earlier that parts of France were now more like the Middle East. To clarify, I meant the old Middle East, not the new one, because that's even worse. In the Jordan Valley next week, they're expecting it to hit 50C. Yes, I know there was a heatwave in 1976 but the hottest ten years on record have all happened in the past decade. The sceptics told us it wouldn't happen. But it is happening, right now. Once, I suppose, the environmentalist hope was that all of this would eventually bring an epiphany, shocking people and governments into drastic action. In reality, though, the first instinct wins out, and that instinct is to cope. Today, about 90 per cent of American homes have air con, set against about 25 per cent of French homes and a mere 5-ish per cent of British ones. Absolutely, there's an environmental cost to this, as seen in the way that their energy usage is far greater than our own. Yet, will this discrepancy remain should 30-degree plus summers become a European norm? Will we all volunteer, for the future sake of the planet, to live in the crotch of Robin Williams's sweaty shorts? Come on. • Heatwaves can make you hot-tempered As it happens, the British politician who may end up doing the most to spread air con in British homes is Miliband himself. In July in parliament, he announced that his department was consulting on expanding existing boiler-replacement grants to include air-to-air heat pumps, which, effectively, are air conditioners, capable of blowing cold as well as hot. In other words, it may well be the ungreen desire to keep cool that makes our home heating as green as it is ever going to be. Either way, there's a lesson here. Nobody wants to wear a hair shirt when it's frankly too hot to wear any shirt. Having been unelectably right all along, environmentalists should be wary of letting the very circumstances they were warning about make them unelectably wrong. Pretty soon, certainly in France, and perhaps here too, a moral argument against air con will begin to sound every bit as absurd as one against central heating. I'm sorry, but there's just no fighting this. Chill out.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Tulip Siddiq ‘used influence over her aunt to acquire land for family'
Tulip Siddiq used her 'special power' as an MP in Britain to exert influence over her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, to acquire state-owned land, an anti-corruption trial was told. Prosecutors in Bangladesh allege that Siddiq applied pressure on Sheikh Hasina, who was deposed as the country's leader last year, to secure plots of land for her mother, brother, and sister. Siddiq, 42, resigned as the anti-corruption minister in Sir Keir Starmer's government in January over 'reputational risks' from her family's links with the Hasina regime. The MP is not attending the trial at Dhaka Special Judge Court 4, which formally began on Wednesday, and has described the case against her as 'persecution and a farce'. • Joy and trepidation in Bangladesh a year since ousting of Sheikh Hasina She claims to have become 'collateral damage' in a power struggle between her aunt and Muhammad Yunus, Hasina's replacement as leader in the south Asian country. Officials from the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) told the court that Siddiq played a central role in acquiring plots of land for relatives in the diplomatic zone of Dhaka in 2022. The court was told that Siddiq had learnt that her aunt had 'used her power' to acquire plots in the Purbachal New Town Project, a long-running land development programme operated by a government agency, Rajuk. Siddiq is then said to have 'simultaneously used her special power to exert pressure and influence on her aunt', according to Afnan Jannat Keya, an ACC assistant director. He said that this led to plots being allotted to her mother, Sheikh Rehana; her sister, Azmina Siddique; and her brother, Radwan Mujib Siddiq. • Tulip Siddiq's flyers found in palace of deposed Bangladesh leader Siddiq is also accused of seeking to influence the secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Public Works and other officials on the instructions of her aunt to acquire a plot for her sister. 'In view of this, the Ministry of Housing and Public Works issued a letter to the chairman of Rajuk to proceed with the allotment,' the court heard. Siddiq is alleged to own a flat in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood of the capital, Dhaka, which investigators say should have ruled her out from availing of the award of land under the scheme. The ACC is examining claims that Hasina and her family misappropriated billions of pounds of state money during her 15-year reign. Hasina, who is living in exile in India after fleeing during mass protests, faces trial in absentia for crimes against humanity during her time in power. Judge Muhammad Rabiul Alam heard the opening statements from three ACC officials relating to three cases on Wednesday. SM Rashidul Hasan, another ACC assistant director, named Tulip Siddiq among 16 people who are accused of offences, including her brother and aunt. The judge set aside August 28 for the next stage in the trial, when prosecution witnesses and evidence will be presented. In a statement published on Monday, Siddiq claimed that she had yet to receive a summons, adding: 'No fair legal process should begin with a media headline. Unfortunately that's what I have been handed out. No engagement. No evidence. Not even a response to legitimate inquiries from my lawyers.' In an interview in The Guardian, she said: 'I'm yet to see a summons … I'm supposedly days away from a showcase trial in a foreign country, and I still don't know what the charges are. 'I feel a bit like I'm trapped in this Kafkaesque nightmare where I've been put on trial and I genuinely haven't found out what the allegations are.' The ACC's prosecutor, Muhammad Tariqul Islam, said Bangladeshi authorities had served notices on each of the accused, instructing them to appear before the court as the trial began. 'If any of them want to contest the allegations, they must appear before the court,' he told reporters outside the courtroom. None of those accused has engaged counsel to represent them at the trial. Prosecutors have separately disputed Siddiq's claims not to have Bangladeshi citizenship, claiming they have unearthed her Bangladeshi passport and identity card. In 2017 she said: 'I am not Bangladeshi.' Asked about her nationality, Mohammad Sultan Mahmud, another ACC prosecutor, said all necessary documents relating to Siddiq and her family would be produced during the trial. Siddiq's lawyers, from Stephenson Harwood, denied that such documents existed and said that she has not had a Bangladeshi passport since she was a child. The MP for Hampstead & Highgate has always denied wrongdoing and accused the Bangladeshi authorities of a 'targeted and baseless' campaign against her. 'I'm collateral damage, because of this feud between Muhammad Yunus and my aunt,' she said. 'These are wider forces that I'm battling against.' She resigned from the Labour frontbench after referring herself to the ministerial standards adviser after reports that she had lived in London properties with links to Hasina. Siddiq had initially claimed that a £650,000 flat in King's Cross in London was given to her by her parents. It later transpired, however, that the flat had been paid for by a developer and associate of figures in the Awami League, Hasina's party.
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Beijing E-Town sues US firm Applied Materials alleging trade secrets leak
BEIJING, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technologies ( opens new tab, a semiconductor equipment firm backed by Beijing's government, on Wednesday said it has sued U.S. chip equipment supplier Applied Materials (AMAT.O), opens new tab over alleged trade secrets infringement. Applied Materials had illegally obtained and used Beijing E-Town's core technology secrets related to plasma sources and wafer surface treatment, the Beijing-based company said according to a filing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company, which is seeking 99.99 million yuan ($13.94 million) in compensation, alleged that Applied Materials had disclosed technical secrets by applying for a patent in China and claiming the patent's application rights. Applied Materials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In 2016, Beijing E-Town acquired Mattson Technology, a California-based semiconductor wafer processing equipment designer and manufacturer. Applied Materials sued Mattson in 2022, alleging that it had hired its former employees with the intention of stealing trade secrets. In 2023, Mattson countersued Applied Materials making similar accusations. In the new case filed with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, Beijing E-Town alleged that Applied Materials had hired two former Mattson employees, who were later listed as the principal inventors behind a patent filed by Applied Materials in China. The patent, filed with China's intellectual property administration, disclosed confidential technical know-how jointly held by Beijing E-Town and Mattson, Beijing E-Town said. Applied Materials' actions, the Beijing firm said, violated China's fair competition law and constituted infringement of its trade secrets. The Beijing court has accepted the civil case but no court hearing has yet been held, Beijing E-Town said. ($1 = 7.1746 Chinese yuan renminbi)
