This is only one of several trials the former South Korean leader faces in connection with his declaration of martial law in 2024
Former President Yoon Suk-yeol. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a seven-year prison sentence for the country’s disgraced former president, Yoon Suk-yeol, for obstructing investigators from carrying out an arrest warrant during their probe into his ill-fated declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024.The verdict comes 538 days after Yoon plunged the country into crisis with his late-night attempt at insurrection.Yoon stood trial on charges of obstruction of justice by mobilizing the Presidential Security Service on Jan. 3, 2025, to block investigators from the Corruption Investigation Offices for High-ranking Officials from executing an arrest warrant against him. He was also indicted on charges of abusing his authority and infringing on the rights of Cabinet members by summoning only certain Cabinet ministers for the meeting held to review his declaration of martial law, and for drafting and later destroying a former martial law proclamation composed after the fact. The former president was additionally charged with abusing his authority by ordering presidential aides for foreign press affairs to draft false communiques related to his declaration of martial law. In January of this year, a district court convicted Yoon and sentenced him to five years behind bars. An appeals court later raised his sentence to seven years. The team of special counsel Cho Eun-seok, who investigated the case, had requested 10 years in both trials. “The lower court did not exceed the limits of its discretion in evaluating evidence by violating the principles of logic and experience, nor did it err in its interpretation or application of the law concerning the elements of the offense,” the Supreme Court said, upholding the seven-year sentence for Yoon. By Oh Yeon-seo, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
