Former President Yoon Suk-yeol and his spouse will appear together at the Seoul Central District Court on the 17th.
According to legal sources, the Seoul Central District Court will hold the first formal trials for former President Yoon's "free opinion poll charges" and first lady Kim Keon-hee's alleged "selling of offices" on the cases brought by Min Joong-ki's special counsel team.
First, the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Division 33 (Presiding Judge Lee Jin-gwan) will open the first hearing at 2 p.m. on former President Yoon's case on charges of violating the Political Funds Act.
On this day, the special counsel will outline the gist of the indictment, and the court will proceed with the defendant's opening statement, documentary evidence examination, and consultations on the plan of proof. The bench plans to hold hearings once a week starting this day.
Prosecutors allege that former President Yoon, in collusion with Kim, received a total of 270 million won worth of opinion polls for free in 58 instances from June 2021 to March 2022 from Myung Tae-gyun, an alleged "political broker." Myung was charged with donating the opinion polls to former President Yoon free of charge during the same period.
The special counsel viewed that the former presidential couple, in return for the free opinion polls, exerted influence so that former People Power Party lawmaker Kim Young-sun, who has ties with Myung, would receive the party's nomination in the 2022 National Assembly by-election.
However, Kim, who was indicted on the same charge, was acquitted of violating the Political Funds Act in the first trial in January. The court reasoned it could not be seen that the former presidential couple obtained property benefits from Myung, nor that they promised the nomination for the former lawmaker Kim. The legal community is watching how the first-instance ruling on Kim will affect the trial of the former president.
The first trial in the first lady's so-called "selling of offices" case also took place this day.
The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Division 21 (Presiding Judge Cho Soon-pyo) held the first hearing at 10 a.m. for Kim, who was brought to trial on charges of brokered bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes.
Kim is accused of receiving jewelry and other items worth 100.38 million won from Seohee Construction Chairman Lee Bong-gwan in the name of a personnel solicitation for eldest son-in-law Park Sung-geun, former chief of staff to the prime minister; of receiving a gold turtle worth 2.65 million won from former National Education Commission Chair Lee Bae-yong in the name of an appointment solicitation; and of receiving a wristwatch worth 39.9 million won from robotic dog entrepreneur Seo Sung-bin in return for a business support solicitation.
Meanwhile, this is the second time the former presidential couple has appeared together at the Seoul Central District Court on the same day, following Nov. 7 last year. At the time, former President Yoon appeared in a separate courtroom as a defendant in the "obstruction of arrest case," while Kim appeared as a defendant in cases involving receiving valuables from the Unification Church and manipulating Deutsch Motors stock. The two did not encounter each other at the court.