South Korea’s Kim Keon-hee appeals for sympathy in jail, but will it work?

South Korea’s jailed former first lady Kim Keon-hee is casting herself as a victim of political persecution to rally sympathy and blunt the impact of mounting corruption charges, analysts say.

Since August 12, the 52-year-old has been held at the Seoul Nambu Detention Centre, awaiting trial on charges including bribery, stock manipulation and accepting illicit political funds.

Her husband, the impeached former president Yoon Suk-yeol, is already behind bars over his botched December 3 martial law decree, making them the first former presidential couple in South Korean history to be imprisoned simultaneously.

In a message seemingly aimed at rallying supporters, Kim reportedly confided to Shin Pyeong, a lawyer aligned with the couple, that she had contemplated death as a means to protect her husband from further punishment.

“As soon as Mrs Kim sat down in the visiting room, she suddenly said: ‘Sir, wouldn’t my husband have a chance to live only if I were to die?’ She seemed deeply preoccupied with this thought these days,” Shin posted on social media on Wednesday.

Shin added that Kim appeared “so emaciated that nothing but skin and bones remain”.