SEOUL, January 13. /TASS/. South Korea’s special counsel has requested that former President Yoon Suk-yeol be sentenced to death in his rebellion case, Yonhap reported.
The country’s Criminal Code provides for three types of punishment for trying to lead a rebellion, those being the death penalty, life in prison, and life imprisonment without forced labor.
Yoon Suk-yeol is charged with organizing a rebellion against the constitutional order by attempting to impose martial law in December 2024. In particular, he is suspected of ordering the military and police to cordon off the parliament building to bar the lawmakers from entering it and revoking martial law. A court verdict in his case is expected in early February. The death penalty has not been applied in South Korea since 1997.
In 1996, South Korea’s former President Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1988) was sentenced to death on charges of rebellion, high treason, and corruption due to his role in the 1979 military coup and the crackdown on the insurrection in Gwangju in 1980. However, capital punishment was replaced by a life sentence by the court of appeals and the Supreme Court. In 1997, he was pardoned by the then president, Kim Young-sam, in the interests of national unity.
