Kim was found guilty of accepting ‘high-value precious metals’ in exchange for favours in personnel appointments
1-MIN READ1-MIN ListenAgence France-PressePublished: 3:55pm, 26 Jun 2026A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon-hee, already serving time for corruption, to another seven years’ imprisonment on Friday in a jobs-for-gifts scandal.
Kim, 53, was found guilty of accepting “high-value precious metals” in exchange for favours in personnel appointments, according to the live-streamed ruling.
The court said she “unhesitatingly accepted valuables of a kind that the average citizen would struggle to acquire even once in a lifetime”.
Kim is already serving a four-year sentence for stock manipulation and bribery.
She was indicted in December on additional charges including accepting jewellery worth a total of 103 million won (US$67,000).
