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Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to life in prison for rebellion as he unsuccessfully tried to impose martial law, plunging the country into turmoil.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel at the Seoul Central District Court found Yoon guilty of leading a rebellion in late 2024 that attempted to subvert the constitution.
Judge Ji Gwi-yeon said, “Yoon’s acts of treason fundamentally undermined the core values ​​of democracy.”
Yoon, 65, faced the possibility of the death penalty.
The mutiny verdict was the second and most consequential in a series of ongoing cases against Yun over his shocking declaration of martial law. Last month, he was sentenced to five years in jail in a related case involving obstruction of justice, abuse of power and falsification of official documents.
The decision marks the end of a dramatic sequence of events that plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades and tested the strength of its 39-year-old democracy.
On December 3, 2024, at 11 pm, Yoon appeared on television broadcasts in South Korea warning that “anti-state”, pro-North Korea forces were attempting to take over the country and declaring emergency rule to “protect the free and constitutional order”.
The order sparked massive protests, with lawmakers breaking through barriers into the National Assembly to hold an emergency vote rejecting the martial law decree.
Facing mounting pressure, Yun rescinded the order about six hours after it was issued. Ten days later, he was impeached by Parliament. He was removed from office by the Constitutional Court of Korea last year.
In their ruling, the judges said Yoon had deployed troops to the National Assembly to barricade lawmakers and arrest political rivals.
“The declaration of emergency martial law and subsequent military and police activities seriously damaged the political neutrality of the military and police, undermined South Korea’s political standing and international credibility, and resulted in extreme political polarization,” the judge said.
The judges attributed Yoon’s motivations to a sense of crisis generated by the opposition-controlled legislature’s persistent blocking of legislation. But he rejected prosecutors’ claim that the emergency declaration was part of a years-long plan to establish a dictatorship.
He said Yoon had no remorse for his actions.
Yoon can appeal the decision and his lawyers have already criticized the decision. South Korea’s judicial system allows criminal cases to be heard three times, including a final hearing on matters of legal interpretation by the Supreme Court.
Several other senior officials have received prison sentences in connection with the crisis. Former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the rebellion.
Former Prime Minister Han Duk-soo, who served as acting president after Yoon’s impeachment, previously received a 23-year prison sentence for his role in facilitating the emergency measures.
In December an independent lawyer acquitted Yun’s wife Kim Keon Hee over the martial law declaration, although she received a 20-month prison sentence last month on separate corruption charges.
About 58 percent of Koreans surveyed in January supported the death penalty for Yoon. South Korea has not carried out any executions since 1997.
“It is difficult to see Yoon’s unconstitutional declaration of martial law as a more serious crime than former President Chun Doo-hwan’s military coup,” said Chang Young-soo, a constitutional law professor at Korea University, referring to the general who seized power in a December 1979 coup and later ordered a massacre of civilians in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Chun was sentenced to death in 1996, but it was commuted to life imprisonment and he was released the following year under a presidential pardon.
Yoon’s conviction reinforces a vindictive pattern in South Korean politics, where some former presidents have avoided legal threat after leaving office.
Lee Myung-bak, who served from 2008 to 2013, was jailed on charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power. Park Geun-hye, his successor from 2013 to 2017, suffered a similar fate for abuse of power and coercion. Roh Moo-hyun took his own life in 2009 under pressure from prosecutors over bribery charges against his family members.
Park and Lee also eventually received presidential pardons, the latter from Yoon.
This pattern of “extreme factional conflict”, Chang said, was enhanced by a “winner takes all” system in which the president was entrusted with broad powers but was limited to a single term.
The Democratic Party, the ruling party of current President Lee Jae-Myung, is pushing for a legal amendment to ban pardons and sentences for those convicted of the rebellion.
Yun, along with leading members of the Democratic Party and his People’s Power Party, had ordered Lee’s arrest as part of his martial law bid.
