Seoul court sentences former president Yoon Suk Yeol to five years over martial law actions

A three-judge panel at the Seoul Central District Court on Friday sentenced South Korea’s impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison for fabricating an official document to justify his short-lived declaration of martial law and for illegally using his bodyguards to block his arrest on insurrection charges.

The judges found Mr. Yoon guilty of obstructing justice after he ordered his Presidential Security Service to prevent law enforcement officials from serving a court-issued warrant. Presiding judge Baek Dae-hyun said, according to the ruling, that "He turned his Presidential Security Service, trained to be loyal to the country, into a de facto private army for his personal safety and interests." The court also convicted him of abusing his power by excluding some cabinet members from a Dec.

3, 2024 meeting and of fabricating a document to make it appear the martial law plan had been reviewed and endorsed; he was found to have ordered the removal of data from government secure phones to obstruct investigators. The sentence was the first in eight separate trials linked to Mr.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law, which lasted six hours on Dec. 3, 2024. The decree banned political activities and deployed troops toward the opposition-controlled National Assembly; legislators voted it down while citizens physically blocked troops, and the Assembly later impeached and suspended him.

Key Topics

Politics, Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea, Martial Law, Presidential Security Service, Insurrection