First lady Kim Keon Hee leaves her car at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, June 10. An appellate court convicted a man on Thursday of aiding and abetting the Deutsch Motors stock price manipulation, in a ruling that could bring legal and political troubles for Kim, who faces similar allegations. Korea Times photo by Seo Jae-hoon

An appellate court has convicted a man of aiding and abetting a stock price manipulation scandal involving Deutsch Motors, a ruling that could bring legal and political challenges for first lady Kim Keon Hee, who faces similar allegations.

The Seoul High Court on Thursday found the accomplice, surnamed Son, guilty of knowingly ignoring the fraud attempt and using his bank account to gain profits from it. He was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for one year for the charges.

With his conviction, political calls to indict Kim on the same charges are expected to mount, given that three of her accounts were also confirmed previously to have been used in their market manipulation attempts between December 2009 and December 2012.

The court also upheld the convictions of major players in that case, including Kwon Oh-soo, former head of Deutsch Motors, a BMW car dealer in Korea, for using insider information to induce purchases of the company's stocks.

Kwon received a three-year prison sentence suspended for four years. He was also fined 500 million won ($372,939). It was heavier than the lower court's two-year term, suspended for three years.

Son was found not guilty of charges of being involved in the market manipulation in the first trial held on Feb. 10, 2023.

A panel of judges at the Seoul Central District Court dismissed the prosecution's allegation that he was among those who colluded for unlawful gains.

The district court said evidence was not sufficient to corroborate his direct involvement in those stock price manipulation attempts, even though he might have been aware that those attempts were taking place. The fact that Son lost money in the process was also factored into the not-guilty verdict.

After the ruling, the prosecution decided to indict him on the additional charge of aiding and abetting the crimes as they were preparing for hearings at the appeals court.

The first lady was accused of allowing the stock-price manipulators to use her bank accounts. Yet the prosecution has not decided whether to indict her.

Political pressure for her to be indicted is expected to increase. The opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has been pushing to pass a bill to appoint a special counsel to investigate the case.

However, the efforts by lawmakers of the majority party have so far been unfruitful. Their first such attempt was vetoed by President Yoon Suk Yeol in January. Nevertheless, they haven't given up, with another such bill expected to reach the National Assembly's plenary session in the coming weeks.

"It's time for first lady Kim Kun Hee to face justice," Rep. Jo Seoung-lae, the party's chief spokesman, said at the Assembly after the ruling. "The DPK will use all means necessary to realize 'the equality before the law,' including the appointment of a special prosecutor."

The first lady has been embroiled in several other controversies, including one in which she received a Christian Dior handbag worth about 3 million won ($2,250) and other expensive gifts from a Korean American pastor in late 2022 during the early phase of Yoon's term.

The alleged corruption case is currently under the review of the deliberation committee at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office regarding whether to indict her and the pastor.