Special Counsel Seeks One-Year Term for Lawmaker in Luxury Bag Case

A special counsel team has asked a Seoul court to sentence opposition lawmaker Kim Gi-hyeon to one year in prison over a luxury bag given to former first lady Kim Keon Hee, bringing the anti-graft case to the sentencing-request stage.

The team led by special counsel Min Joong-ki made the request Monday during proceedings at the Seoul Central District Court. Kim, a member of the main opposition People Power Party, is being tried on charges of violating South Korea’s anti-graft law. The requested punishment is not a verdict, and the court will decide whether he is guilty and what penalty, if any, should be imposed.

Kim and his wife are accused of providing Kim Keon Hee with a Roger Vivier clutch bag in March 2023. Investigators allege that the gift was made in return for the former first lady’s support for Kim Gi-hyeon’s election as leader of the People Power Party earlier that month. The special counsel team separately asked the court to sentence the lawmaker’s wife to six months in prison.

The lawmaker has acknowledged that his wife gave the bag to the then first lady. He has denied, however, that the gift involved an improper request. That distinction is central to the dispute before the court: the delivery of the bag itself is acknowledged by the defense, while the alleged purpose and legal significance of the gift remain contested.

The former first lady said last month that she had received the luxury bag, though she stated that it was not handed to her personally. Kim Keon Hee has been convicted in separate corruption cases, but the proceeding involving the lawmaker and his wife concerns the circumstances surrounding this specific gift and the special counsel’s allegation of improper solicitation.

The prosecution request sets out the punishment sought by the special counsel but does not resolve the case. The court must assess the evidence and the competing accounts, including the team’s claim that the bag was connected to political support and the lawmaker’s denial that any improper solicitation took place.

The case puts renewed focus on gifts involving senior political figures and their families, as well as on how courts distinguish a prohibited benefit from a gift that defendants say was not tied to an improper request. For Kim Gi-hyeon, the immediate issue is whether the court accepts the special counsel’s account of why the bag was provided. The trial will conclude with the court’s own judgment rather than the sentence requested by investigators.