The Seoul Central District Court today sentenced South Korea’s ousted president Yoon Suk-yeol to five years in prison for imposing martial law in December 2024.
This is the first sentence against Yoon in eight criminal trials. The most serious charge against him is that he led a rebellion as a result of imposing martial law, a crime carrying the death penalty.
The capital’s court today also found the former head of state guilty of other charges, such as refusing to comply with authorities’ attempts to arrest him and forging official documents.
Just over a year after martial law was declared, triggering a political crisis that led to the impeachment of the conservative leader, Yoon, 65, received a sentence shorter than the ten years in prison requested by the prosecution.
The court concluded that Yoon excluded ministers from a meeting to discuss preparations for the imposition of martial law and later obstructed police attempts to arrest him.
Yoon barricaded himself for weeks in the official residence in Seoul under the protection of bodyguards, even managing to thwart a first police operation.
“Although he had a duty, above all others, to defend the Constitution and the rule of law as president, the defendant, on the contrary, demonstrated an attitude that revealed contempt for the Constitution,” said presiding judge Baek Dae-hyun when delivering the sentence.
“The defendant’s guilt is extremely grave”, he added.
On December 3, 2024, Yoon announced on television the imposition of martial law, sending troops to parliament.
The conservative reversed the decision hours later after enough lawmakers managed to enter the parliamentary building and approve the suspension of the decree.
Yoon justified martial law, an unprecedented measure in South Korea since the military dictatorships of the 1980s, by claiming that the opposition-controlled parliament was blocking the state budget.
In a televised address, the president said he was acting to protect the country from “North Korean communist forces” and “eliminate elements hostile to the state.”
Yoon was eventually removed from office by the Constitutional Court last April, triggering presidential elections that resulted in victory for Lee Jae-myung, the left-wing opposing candidate.
Yoon Suk-yeol has seven days to appeal.
In his final statement before the court adjourned for deliberation, the former president stated that he had simply exercised his legal prerogatives as head of state.
“This was not a military dictatorship repressing citizens, but an effort to safeguard freedom and sovereignty and to strengthen the constitutional order,” he said, according to South Korea’s public news agency Yonhap.
