A South Korean court yesterday sentenced former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to five years in prison in the first verdict from eight criminal trials over the martial law debacle that forced him out of office and other allegations.
Yoon was impeached, arrested and dismissed as president after his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024 triggered huge public protests calling for his ouster.
The most significant criminal charge against him alleges that his martial law enforcement amounted to a rebellion.
Photo: Reuters
An independent counsel has requested the death sentence over that charge, and the Seoul Central District Court would decide on that in a ruling on Feb. 19.
Yoon has maintained he did not intend to place the country under military rule for an extended period, saying his decree was only meant to inform the people about the danger of the liberal-controlled parliament obstructing his agenda.
However, investigators have viewed Yoon’s decree as an attempt to bolster and prolong his rule, charging him with rebellion, abuse of power and other criminal offenses.
The court sentenced Yoon for defying attempts to detain him and fabricating the martial law proclamation. He was also sentenced for sidestepping a legally mandated full Cabinet meeting, which deprived some members who were not convened of their rights to deliberate on his decree.
Judge Baek Dae-hyun said imposing “a heavy punishment” was necessary, because Yoon has not shown remorse and has only repeated “hard-to-comprehend excuses.”
Restoring legal systems damaged by Yoon’s action was necessary, Baek added.
Yoon’s defense team said they would appeal the ruling, which they believe was “politicized” and reflected “the unliberal arguments by the independent counsel.”
The ruling “oversimplified the boundary between the exercise of the president’s constitutional powers and criminal liability,” they said.
Park Sung-bae, a lawyer who specializes in criminal law, said there is little chance the court would decide Yoon should face the death penalty, adding that he would likely receive a life sentence, or a prison sentence of 30 years or more.
South Korea has maintained a de facto moratorium on executions since 1997 and courts rarely hand down death sentences.
The court would take into account that Yoon’s decree did not cause casualties and did not last long, although Yoon has not shown genuine remorse for his action, Park said.
South Korea has a history of pardoning former presidents who were jailed over diverse crimes in the name of promoting national unity.
Even if Yoon is spared the death penalty or life imprisonment at the rebellion trial, he might still face other prison sentences in the multiple smaller trials he faces.
Some observers said Yoon is likely retaining a defiant attitude in the ongoing trials to maintain his support base in the belief that he cannot avoid a lengthy sentence, but could be pardoned in the future.
The former president’s other trials deal with charges such as ordering drone flights over North Korea to deliberately inflame animosities to look for a pretext to declare martial law, manipulating the investigation into a marine’s drowning in 2023 and receiving free opinion surveys from an election broker in return for a political favor.
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