Top court upholds South Korean ex-president Yoon’s 7-year jail sentence

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(FILES) South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on February 13, 2025. A South Korean court will rule on February 19, 2026 on insurrection charges against ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, weighing whether he should be sentenced to death for his failed bid to impose military rule. (Photo by JEON HEON-KYUN / POOL / AFP)

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South Korea’s highest court upheld ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s seven-year prison sentence on Thursday over crimes tied to his botched 2024 martial law declaration and its chaotic aftermath.

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The case covered accusations that Yoon had obstructed cabinet deliberations and used forged signatures of the prime minister in the lead-up to the declaration, as well as using presidential security agents to block his own arrest after lawmakers had nullified it.

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The disgraced former president is already in detention while he appeals a separate life sentence for leading an insurrection with his martial law declaration, which he insists was motivated by the public interest.

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In the case brought before the Supreme Court, Yoon was accused of obstructing deliberations by convening only a select group of ministers for a meeting shortly before he declared martial law.

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Other charges included allegedly creating and destroying a false martial law decree bearing forged signatures from the prime minister, ordering officials to distribute a misleading press release to foreign media and directing an army commander to delete records from secure military phones.

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Prosecutors had sought a 10-year prison sentence for Yoon.

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In January, a lower court had sentenced Yoon to five years in prison after convicting him on most charges.

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In April, an appeals court upheld the ruling, added a guilty verdict over the misleading press release, and raised the sentence to seven years.

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Both prosecutors and Yoon’s legal team had appealed to the Supreme Court, whose rulings are final.

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“All appeals are dismissed,” a Supreme Court judge said in a televised ruling, adding that the lower court’s judgment “contained no errors”.

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The ex-president did not attend Thursday’s hearing.

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Yoon’s legal team expressed “deep regret”, accusing the Supreme Court of concluding the case “without sufficient deliberation”.

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The ex-president’s lawyers plan to challenge the ruling on constitutional grounds and said they would raise a complaint.

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Prosecutors said they respected the top court’s decision, adding they would do their “utmost to successfully prosecute the remaining cases related to insurrection.”

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– Political crisis –

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The shock late-night national televised address in December 2024 that suspended civilian rule plunged South Korea into an unprecedented political crisis.

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Martial law lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to vote it down in an emergency session.

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However, Yoon’s move triggered protests, sent the stock market plunging and caught key allies like the United States off-guard.

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In a separate case, a court handed Yoon a 30-year prison sentence for sending drones into North Korea to “manufacture” a crisis ahead of his martial law bid.

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In January, a lower court said Yoon abused his power by turning officials of the Presidential Security Service against the state, by using them to block investigators from detaining him.

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The top court said Thursday that measures by Yoon’s presidential security team, including human-chain drills and barbed wire, to obstruct a court warrant could not be justified as legitimate security activities.

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The former president has insisted his martial law declaration was “solely for the sake of the nation”.

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In 2024, he also defended it as necessary to root out “anti-state forces” and quash what he claimed were threats from North Korea.

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Yoon was ousted over the martial law bid in April 2025, triggering elections that gave the presidency to Lee Jae Myung of the centre-left Democratic Party.

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AFP

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