Democratic Party says Kim Keon-hee's additional arrest warrant was an obvious decision

On the afternoon of the 27th, the Supreme Court's Second Division issued an additional arrest warrant for Kim Keon-hee on the grounds that she posed a risk of destroying evidence or fleeing. Kim's detention was originally set to expire on the 31st of this month, but the new warrant extends her detention through the end of the year.

The Supreme Court's Second Division, which handles the final appeal in the job-selling-for-bribery case (in which official positions were bought and sold in exchange for bribes), is presided over by Justice Oh Kyung-mi. The special prosecutors' team investigating Kim Keon-hee, led by special prosecutor Min Joong-ki, applied for the additional arrest warrant before the court on the 15th, and after review, the court granted it.

In the job-selling-for-bribery case, Kim was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 64.8 million won at the first trial, reduced to five years in prison and a 24.4 million won fine on appeal.

Kim is also waiting for a verdict in the retrial of her case involving three allegations, including the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation scheme, after the Supreme Court referred it to its full-bench en banc panel—a gathering of all Supreme Court justices—a day before the ruling was due, with three months now having passed. In that trial, Kim's sentence was increased from one year and eight months at the first trial to four years on appeal.

The Democratic Party of Korea said on the 27th that the issuance of the warrant was an obvious decision consistent with public common sense. In a written briefing on the 27th, the party's chief spokesman Park Sung-jun pointed out that it would go against public common sense for Kim Keon-hee to nearly walk free while the trial on the job-selling charges is delayed, noting that the trial has been stalled without a conclusion for three months. Park called the five-year sentence handed down in the second trial too light and urged the Supreme Court to deliver a stern ruling proportionate to her crimes.

Following the additional arrest, Kim will remain in detention until the end of the year as she awaits the outcomes of the two final appeals.