hankyoreh

Yun Young-ho, the former director general of the Unification Church’s world headquarters, departs from Seoul Central District Court on July 30, 2025, after appearing before a judge reviewing a request for a warrant for his detention on suspicion of bribery. (Yoon Woon-sik/Hankyoreh)

New evidence presented in court suggests that before South Korea’s 2022 presidential election, a longtime Unification Church official who serves as vice president of the church’s Segye Ilbo newspaper schemed to actively support Yoon Suk-yeol’s presidential bid on the People Power Party ticket, with the expectation of being rewarded certain favors. 

Those favors included having a say in appointing ambassadorial posts to the US and Japan, employment in the presidential office and nominating proportional representatives to the National Assembly.
 
Yoon Jeong-ro, the vice president of the Segye Ilbo newspaper, was summoned as a witness to a hearing on Thursday in the trial of Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja, her chief of staff Jeong Won-ju, and Yun Young-ho, the former director-general of the church’s global headquarters.

During the hearing, which was presided over by Judge Woo In-seong, special counsel Min Joung-kie and his team of prosecutors presented various text messages sent by Yoon Jeong-ro as evidence.
 
The texts show that the Unification Church began its efforts to reach out to Yoon Suk-yeol in earnest after he won the PPP’s presidential nomination. 

“I will try to meet Y [a reference to the former president] in mid- or late December,” Yoon Jeong-ro messaged Yun Young-ho on Nov. 8, 2021. 

“The Yoon Suk-yeol [primary] campaign team’s wrap party is today. It takes around two weeks on average to get a new campaign team together. I’ll keep my eye on a few characters that he could take with him to the Blue House,” he said. 
 
Those texts were sent three days after Yoon Suk-yeol was named the PPP’s official presidential nominee, demonstrating that the church wasted no time putting into motion their plan to back Yoon and explore who they wanted on their team in the Blue House.

A few weeks later, on Nov. 17, 2021, Yoon Jeong-ro met with lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong and former lawmaker Kim Sung-tae — both key members of Yoon Suk-yeol’s election campaign — in the Yeouido neighborhood of Seoul. The following day, Yoon Jeong-ro texted Yun Young-ho about arranging a meeting with Kweon.

“A successful meeting will bring our chances of a meeting with ‘Y’ to 90%,” Yoon Jeong-ro commented in a text message on Nov. 19, 2021.

In effect, it was Yoon Jeong-ro who set the stage for Yun Young-ho’s lobbying of Kweon Seong-dong.

About 20 days later, the demands from the Unification Church began to grow more specific. On Dec. 8, 2021, Yoon Jeong-ro sent the following text message to Yun Young-ho: “All you have to do is promise to actively help Yoon Suk-yeol get elected. If you explain our standing in the US and Japan, it would be possible to secure consulships or ambassadorships. Depending on our level of assistance, it should also be possible to ask for nominations for proportional or local seats.”

When the special counsel team asked Yoon Jeong-ro if his objective had been to ask Yoon Suk-yeol’s camp for influence over nominating consuls, ambassadors and lawmakers in exchange for help in getting elected, he responded, “You could say that. I share my dreams with everybody I meet.”

One day after Yun Young-ho met with Yoon Jeong-ro and Kweon, the lawmaker, on Dec. 29, 2021, Yun sent Yoon Jeong-ro the following message: “If Kweon accepts the conditions I offered, we will provide (1) votes, (2) ground game and (3) finances. Our actual condition is giving our people roles in his administration to pursue the policies we want among his campaign pledges. We need to have a presence among the Blue House aides and in the party.”

This message reconfirms the demands the Unification Party intended to make after helping Yoon Suk-yeol become president.

When the special counsel team asked Yoon Jeong-ro why he’d tried to forge links between the political world and the Unification Church, the newspaper vice president said, “My job is meeting people and explaining what we’re about so people can better understand us.”

The conversations between Yoon Jeong-ro and Yun Young-ho also suggest that the Unification Church placed more weight on lobbying the conservative People Power Party than the center-left Democratic Party prior to the 2022 election.

On Jan. 11, 2022, Yoon Jeong-ro informed Yun that he’d reported on reaching out to the opposition party (then the PPP) while visiting the religious group’s Cheonjeong Palace at the request of Han’s closest aide, Jeong Won-ju. Yun Young-ho responded by saying, “Good work. There’s little to be gained from outreach to the ruling party,” referring to the Democratic Party.

Neither Yoon Jeong-ro nor Yun Young-ho approved of Han Hak-ja meeting with Kim Keon-hee, the wife of Yoon Suk-yeol.

On Nov. 3, 2021, Yun Young-ho texted Yoon Jeong-ro to say that he’d “rejected constant requests from organizational leaders for a meeting between Kim Keon-hee and Mother,” a term used in the church for Han Hak-ja. Yoon texted back that “Mother should be spared the trouble. After seeing how the election goes, [a meeting] would be possible during a prayer of benediction.”

That was two days before Yoon clinched the PPP’s nomination for president.

By Lee Na-young, staff reporter

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