Special counsel indicts ex-President Yoon over free opinion polls

A special counsel team indicted former President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday on charges of receiving dozens of opinion poll results for free in violation of the Political Funds Act. Special counsel Min Joong-ki's team announced the indictment in a notice to the press, saying it also indicted Myung Tae-kyun, a self-proclaimed power broker, on charges of providing the opinion polls to Yoon. Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, have been accused of receiving the results of 58 opinion polls worth 270 million won ($186,000) between June 2021 and March 2022, when Yoon won the presidential election. Kim has already been indicted on the same charge and is set to receive the court's verdict on Jan. 28. The special counsel team had investigated suspicions that the free opinion polls were in exchange for the presidential couple's help with securing candidate nominations for the June 2022 parliamentary by-elections. Those allegations were not listed in the indictment and will likely be transferred to the police for further investigation if a conclusion is not reached by the end of the team's term Sunday.