▲ Former first lady Kim Keon Hee (Yonhap)

special counsel-ex-first lady

Special counsel asks top court to postpone final ruling on ex-first lady in free opinion polls case

SEOUL, July 14 (Yonhap) -- A special counsel team has asked the Supreme Court to postpone its ruling on former first lady Kim Keon Hee's charges of receiving free opinion polls in collusion with her husband, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, legal sources said Tuesday, one day after the ousted former president was convicted of the charges.

A district court on Monday convicted Yoon of accepting illegal political funds in the form of free opinion polls from a self-proclaimed power broker, marking a departure from Kim's acquittal of the same charges in her appeals trial in April.

According to the sources, special counsel Min Joong-ki's team requested the postponement of the top court's ruling on Kim, scheduled for Thursday, so it can submit additional opinions reflecting the court findings in Yoon's trial.

The couple was indicted separately on charges of receiving 58 opinion polls worth about 570 million won (US$180,754) for free from the power broker, Myung Tae-kyun, in exchange for their support for former Rep. Kim Young-sun in winning the nomination of the conservative People Power Party for a parliamentary by-election in June 2022.

An appellate court had cleared Yoon's wife of the charges in April, but a Seoul district court on Monday convicted Yoon of receiving 14 opinions polls for free between April 2021 and March 22, sentencing him to two years in prison and Myung to an 18-month prison term.

The special counsel has appealed the appellate court ruling that acquitted Kim.

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