Where Was Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Wife When He Got Arrested?

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested on January 15, 2025, following a dramatic raid on his presidential residence that ended a prolonged standoff. The arrest came weeks after Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law, marking the first time in South Korea’s history that a sitting president has been detained.

The Raid and Arrest Of Yoon Suk Yeol

Hundreds of officers from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) and police stormed Yoon’s residence before dawn on Wednesday. Investigators scaled walls and navigated trails around the compound to gain access to the main building. This marked their second attempt to execute the arrest warrant after a prior effort on January 3 was thwarted by Yoon’s Presidential Security Service (PSS), which blocked investigators for hours.

On Wednesday morning, Yoon’s lawyer, Seok Dong-hyeon, announced that Yoon had agreed to meet with investigators, stating his intention to leave the residence to avoid any escalation. Shortly after, the CIO confirmed that the arrest warrant had been executed at 10:33 AM local time.

Where Was Yoon Suk Yeol’s Wife When He Got Arrested?

It is not clearly known whether Yoon Suk Yeol’s wife Kim Keon Hee was present with him at the time of his raid and arrested. We will keep you posted with the updates.

The arrest operation faced resistance from Yoon’s guards, leading investigators to use ladders to bypass blocked entrances. Reports indicate that Kim Sung-hoon, the acting chief of the PSS, was also detained for obstructing the earlier arrest attempt.

Yoon’s arrest follows his December 3 declaration of martial law, which he justified as necessary to protect the country from “anti-state forces.” The move included deploying soldiers to disrupt parliamentary proceedings aimed at overturning the declaration. Lawmakers successfully convened to revoke the martial law and impeached Yoon on December 14.

Suspended from office, Yoon now faces charges of insurrection, which are not covered by presidential immunity and carry severe penalties, including the death penalty. Acting President Choi Sang-mok described the situation as a critical test of South Korea’s commitment to upholding the rule of law.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, has become the first sitting president in the country to face arrest. His attempted power grab has plunged South Korea into its most severe political crisis in decades, with far-reaching implications for the nation’s democratic governance.

The challenges facing impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol deepened as his wife, Kim Keon Hee, was found guilty of plagiarism in her master’s thesis. According to a report by the South China Morning Post on Thursday, Sookmyung Women’s University concluded its investigation, initiated in 2022, into Kim’s 1999 dissertation submitted to the university’s graduate school of education.

The university provided its findings to Kim in December, granting her until the end of January to appeal the decision. If she contests the report, Sookmyung Women’s University will reexamine the case before delivering a final judgment, as reported by South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Who is Kim Keon Hee?

Born in 1972, Kim Keon Hee studied painting at Kyonggi University and later earned a master’s degree in art education and a doctorate in digital content design. She has worked as an educator and founded Covana Contents, a company specializing in cultural content, in 2007. Kim married Yoon Suk Yeol in 2012 after a long-standing acquaintance.

This is not Kim’s first encounter with academic disputes. In 2022, Kookmin University cleared her of allegations of plagiarism regarding her 2008 doctoral dissertation in design. Kim has also faced accusations unrelated to her academic work, including alleged involvement in stock market manipulation and meddling in election nominations.

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