Prosecutors question South Korea’s first lady for over Dior bag scandal

Prosecutors in South Korea have questioned first lady Kim Keon Hee for the first time amid controversy over her receiving a luxury Christian Dior handbag.

The Seoul central district prosecutor’s office said Ms Kim was quizzed at an undisclosed government building behind closed doors for around 12 hours, which began at 1.30pm on Saturday and spilled into the early hours of Sunday.

The questioning of the first lady, the first time in the history of South Korea, comes amid mounting pressure by the opposition to probe Ms Kim for allegedly accepting the luxury bag valued at three million won (£1742) in exchange for favours.

Spy camera footage of Ms Kim receiving the Dior bag from a pastor in 2022 ballooned into a major political controversy, tumbling president Yoon Suk Yeol’s approval rating below 30 per cent and his party's subsequent defeat in the parliamentary elections.

In South Korea, government officials and their spouses cannot accept gifts that are worth more than $750. The law mandates this even if there is no seeming conflict of interest.

Choi Ji-woo, the lawyer representing Ms Kim, said the first lady “diligently cooperated with the investigation and truthfully testified to all the facts”.

The lawyer said the first lady was mostly asked about how the bag was received and if any solicitations were made by the pastor, according to Korea Herald.

Ms Kim’s close aide told the investigator earlier this month the first lady had ordered the bag to be returned to the pastor the same day. But aid said she forgot to return it because of other tasks, and the handbag has since remained unused and stored by the presidential office, according to local reports.

The spy video captures the pastor meeting Ms Kim in her private office, away from the presidential premises, and offering her a gift. The 51-year-old is heard saying “Why do you keep bringing these? Please, you don’t need to do this.”

The pastor has said that he got acquainted with Kim during the president’s campaign and was later invited to the inauguration in May 2022. A month later, he visited her private office to thank her and that is when he claims he heard Ms Kim discussing the appointment of a high-ranking official.

Upon hearing this, he said he felt the need to “expose her” involvement in government affairs.

After the footage was released, the opposition started attacking the president who was already battling several domestic issues, including the slowing economy, the Halloween crush probe fiasco, and the issue of an increasingly noisy neighbour in North Korea.

In his first remarks on the bag scandal in February, Mr Yoon dismissed it as a "political scheme" and said his wife had accepted the bag only because it was difficult for her to refuse it.

Later in a rare press conference in May, he apologised "for causing concern to the public due to my wife’s unwise behaviour".

Apart from the Dior bag controversy, Ms Kim’s roles and responsibilities have been questioned after allegations of her involvement in stock manipulation and allegations of academic plagiarism.

The allegations of stock manipulation were from the period before she married Mr Yoon in 2012. It prompted the country’s main opposition Democratic Party of Korea to pass a bill to demand a special counsel to investigate the allegations.

However, Mr Yoon blocked the bill by using his veto power.