Former first lady Kim Keon Hee (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) – Former first lady asked for the Unification Church’s cooperation in backing a specific candidate in the People Power Party’s (PPP) leadership election in March 2023, an indictment written by special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team showed Monday.
The team suspects that the Unification Church sought to request various policy favors from the administration of former President Yoon Suk Yeol in exchange for its political support.
According to the indictment for a former Unification Church official surnamed Yun, obtained by Yonhap News Agency, church leader Han Hak-ja emphasized the ideology of unity between church and state in around October 2019 and has since pushed for various projects and events related to Africa, Cambodia, a Demilitarized Zone peace park and hosting a U.N. secretariat in South Korea.
Under the instruction of Han, Yun selected Yoon as a presidential hopeful, who can not only accommodate the Unification Church’s policy proposals but also establish friendly relations with the church, ahead of the 2022 presidential election, according to the indictment.
Yun is accused of offering Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the PPP 100 million won (US$72,000) in January 2022 while promising the church’s extensive support for Yoon in the presidential election in exchange for the government’s support for the church’s projects and events in the future.
Kweon then met with Han at the latter’s office in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, on Feb. 8, 2022, the indictment said, adding the church leader expressed her support for Yoon during a church meeting in Seoul on March 2.
The document also alleged that Yun and a shaman close to the former first lady discussed recruiting a large number of Unification Church members to support Kweon in the PPP leadership election held in March 2023, noting that the recruitment plan was requested by Kim to Yun through the shaman in November 2022.
(Yonhap)
