SEOUL– The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) on Friday renewed its call for a special counsel probe into a stock manipulation case allegedly involving first lady Kim Keon Hee after the key culprit in the case was found guilty.
DP spokesperson An Ho-young said in a statement that President Yoon Suk Yeol and the ruling party should accept the special probe request into the first lady’s alleged involvement in stock manipulation “if they want to talk about the rule of law.”
The statement came after Kwon Oh-soo, the former head of Deutsch Motors Inc., a BMW car dealer in South Korea, was sentenced to a suspended two-year prison term for manipulating the company’s stock prices.
The case has drawn wide attention due to allegations of the first lady’s involvement.
The DP spokesperson accused the prosecution of having no will or power to properly investigate the first lady and claimed an independent counsel probe is the “only way.”
The first lady should now face investigation as an “accomplice” in a proven stock manipulation case, the spokesperson said, noting her name was mentioned about 300 times during Kwon’s trial.
But the presidential office countered that Friday’s ruling proved the first lady’s innocence.
The argument is based on the court’s acquittal of two people suspected of being “financiers” in the stock manipulation. The DP has accused the first lady of also playing the role of a financier in the stock manipulation case.
The presidential office also pointed to the court’s ruling that the statute of limitations had expired for the first lady’s alleged involvement in the case.
“Today’s sentence clearly reveals that the Democratic Party has been making false claims,” it said in a statement. “Even so, it is once again arbitrarily interpreting the ruling and declaring it publicly. This is an act of losing sight of the basics of the rule of law.”
Source: Yonhap News Agency