Former first lady Kim Keon-hee declined to answer most questions in her first interrogation since her detention in a bribery case linked to last year’s general election.

Kim was questioned for four and a half hours at special counsel Min Joong-ki’s office in central Seoul on Thursday about whether she’d accepted a Lee Ufan painting worth 140 million won, or some 100-thousand U.S. dollars, from former prosecutor Kim Sang-min.

Prosecutors say the former first lady accepted the painting, through her brother, in exchange for attempting to help Kim Sang-min win his party’s nomination.

Though Kim Keon-hee declined to answer most of the team’s questions, she strongly denied ever having displayed the Lee Ufan painting in the presidential residence.

The special counsel is expected to summon former President Yoon Suk Yeol, given that prosecutors must prove Kim Keon-hee, who was not a public official at the time of the incident, acted in collusion with Yoon or other state officials in order to charge her with bribery.

Investigators separately questioned on Friday a School Violence Countermeasures Committee member regarding allegations that Kim Keon-hee had covered up a bullying case involving the daughter of former presidential aide Kim Seung-hee in 2023.