South Korean investigators seek arrest of leader of Unification Church in probe of ex-first lady

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean investigators said Thursday that they have requested an arrest warrant for the leader of the Unification Church. The announcement came a day after they questioned her about allegations that the church bribed the wife of jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol and a conservative lawmaker.

The church leader, Hak Ja Han, is the 82-year-old widow of the church’s South Korean founder, Sun Myung Moon. She and the church have denied allegations they bribed Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, and the lawmaker.

Park Sang-jin, an investigator involved in the case, told The Associated Press that a court hearing to decide whether to approve Han’s arrest was scheduled for next Monday.

Kim was arrested and charged last month on allegations including bribery, stock manipulation and meddling in the selection of a legislative candidate. Her lawyers have denied the allegations.

The lawmaker, Kweon Seong-dong , a staunch Yoon loyalist was arrested this week. He has denied receiving money from the church. Investigators visited the headquarters of his conservative People Power Party on Thursday to request documents to examine claims that Unification Church members signed up en masse before the party’s 2023 leadership race to boost Kweon’s candidacy.

The investigation into Kim is one of three special prosecutor probes launched under Seoul’s new liberal government targeting Yoon’s presidency. The others focus on Yoon’s planning and execution of martial law on Dec. 3 and his government’s alleged cover-up of a marine’s drowning death during a 2023 flood rescue operation.

His imposition of martial law, which was short lived, led to his impeachment later that month and removal from office in April.

The Unification Church criticized the investigators’ attempt to arrest Han, insisting that she does not pose a flight risk or a threat of destroying evidence, and has cooperated with the probe even while recovering from a heart procedure this month.

“Requesting an arrest warrant for an internationally respected religious leader without presenting clear evidence is an excessive move that disregards even the most basic respect due to a religious leader,” the church said in a statement.

Kim is suspected of accepting luxury gifts through an intermediary from a Unification Church official who allegedly sought various business favors, including the church’s participation in a Cambodian development project. The official, who has been arrested, is also suspected of providing 100 million won ($72,400) in bribes to Kweon.

Han was questioned for nearly 10 hours on Wednesday. She and her church have said the official overstepped his authority and acted on his own.

Han is the top leader of the church, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which her husband founded in 1954.

A self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative family values, Moon built the Unification Church into an international movement with millions of followers and extensive business interests. The church is widely known for mass weddings, pairing thousands of couples who often are from different countries.

FILE - Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the Unification Church, speaks during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Peace Cup Suwon at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Suwon, South Korea, on July 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - South Korea's former first lady Kim Keon Hee, wife of impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, arrives at a court to attend a hearing to review her arrest warrant requested by special prosecutors, in Seoul, South Korea, on Aug. 12, 2025. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Couples from around the world participate in a mass wedding ceremony at the Cheong Shim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea, on March 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

Hak Ja Han, the leader of South Korea's Unification Church, arrives at a special prosecutor's office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 19, 2026--

Diamond Quanta today announced Adamantine Thermal™, an engineered-diamond thermal platform designed for integration into advanced packaging workflows and heterogeneous semiconductor systems. The announcement builds on the company’s CES 2026 Eureka Park debut and reflects growing customer interest in diamond-enabled solutions for next-generation electronics.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260119507092/en/

The announcement follows Diamond Quanta’s CES 2026 debut, where the company demonstrated 300 mm diamond-on-silicon wafer technology, designed for wafer-to-wafer (W2W) and chip-to-wafer (C2W) bonding compatibility, along with its first commercial diamond glass product, Adamantine Optics™. At CES, the company engaged with system OEMs, semiconductor manufacturers, and ecosystem partners around practical insertion points for diamond within advanced packaging flows.

Extending Diamond Quanta’s CES 2026 Demonstrations

Adamantine Thermal builds directly on the same engineered-diamond manufacturing approach introduced at CES. While diamond is well known for its high intrinsic thermal conductivity, its integration into modern semiconductor packaging has historically been limited by surface roughness, bonding compatibility, and manufacturability at scale.

Diamond Quanta’s approach addresses these challenges by combining:
- CMOS-compatible, low-temperature diamond growth on industry-standard substrates
- Laser-based densification to produce smooth, bond-ready diamond surfaces
- W2W and C2W bonding workflows that support integration into advanced packaging stacks

“Thermal is the most immediate and universal entry point for diamond in electronics,” said Adam Khan, Founder and CEO of Diamond Quanta. “Once diamond can be bonded reliably and at scale, it stops being a research material and becomes a practical platform.”

A key application area for Adamantine Thermal is engineered-diamond glass interposers, where diamond is integrated with glass cores that are already entering advanced packaging workflows. Glass interposers are gaining traction for signal integrity and dimensional stability, and the addition of diamond enables more uniform thermal management while improving flatness and mechanical robustness.

Adamantine Thermal is architected from the outset to support W2W and C2W bonding approaches that are critical for next-generation interposers and stacked systems. By maintaining compatibility with standard fab infrastructure and panel-scale workflows, the platform is designed to bridge today’s passive thermal materials and future diamond-enabled electronic architectures.

Diamond Quanta confirmed that Adamantine Thermal is entering partner evaluation programs, with engineered-diamond interposer concepts advancing in alignment with industry adoption cycles for advanced packaging. The thermal platform complements the company’s recently launched Adamantine Optics offering and reinforces a broader roadmap spanning thermal management, photonics, interposers, and future diamond-enabled systems.

ABOUT DIAMOND QUANTA

Based in Mountain View, California, Diamond Quanta is a materials and semiconductor enablement company developing an engineered-diamond platform designed to integrate into existing semiconductor manufacturing workflows. The company focuses on addressing system-level constraints in advanced electronics, including thermal management and optical performance, through scalable, manufacturable diamond-based solutions. Diamond Quanta’s mission is to make diamond as accessible to the world as silicon. The Physics of Forever™. Learn more at www.diamondquanta.com or contact info@diamondquanta.com.

The Diamond Quanta team at CES 2026 holding Adamantine Optics™ & Adamantine Thermal Products™ and High-Resolution TEM image of DQ's high quality diamond stack interface