Former President of South Korea Sentenced to Prison
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – In a recent ruling, South Korea’s appeals court has sentenced former President Yun Seok-Yeol to seven years in prison. This decision arises from his acts of resisting arrest and avoiding a cabinet meeting during a brief period of martial law in December 2024.
This latest conviction adds to a life sentence he is already facing for sedition, stemming from what many viewed as an authoritarian approach that has led to one of the nation’s most significant democratic crises in years.
Judge Yoon Sung-sik of the Seoul High Court noted that Yun circumvented the required full cabinet meeting to declare martial law, falsified documents to cover up his missteps, and used security forces inappropriately against law enforcement during the aftermath of his impeachment. It’s worth mentioning that Yun remained silent throughout the sentencing process.
One of his attorneys expressed disappointment regarding the ruling and indicated intentions to appeal to the Supreme Court. Yun, for his part, is also appealing his life sentence.
Earlier this year, a lower court had initially sentenced Yun to five years but cleared him of some charges linked to the cabinet meetings prior to imposing martial law. The court found him not responsible for two ministers who were excluded from the meeting.
However, the Seoul High Court reversed this acquittal, convicting him on all counts and asserting that he infringed upon the rights of the ministers by selectively convening just a few individuals to simulate a formal discussion.
Yun’s declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024, although brief, triggered a serious political upheaval that immobilized the government, disrupted foreign relations, and unsettled financial markets. The situation began to stabilize only after his liberal opponent Lee Jae-myung won a subsequent presidential election in June.
Yun found himself suspended from his duties on December 14, 2024, following his impeachment by a liberal-led parliament, and was formally dismissed from office in April 2025 by the Constitutional Court.
After the suspension, he ignored a court order for detention, leading to standoffs with law enforcement that were fairly dramatic, to say the least. At one point, agents arrived at the presidential palace but were blocked from detaining him by presidential security. He was eventually taken into custody, released briefly, but then rearrested later.
Now, he remains in custody as he faces multiple ongoing criminal trials.
Interestingly, on the day before this ruling, the same court increased the prison sentence of Yun’s wife, Kim Gun-hee, to four years. This came as a result of her accepting extravagant gifts linked to the Unification Church in exchange for political favors from Yun’s administration.
In another matter, last week prosecutors proposed a 30-year prison sentence for Yun, alleging that he deliberately escalated tensions with North Korea by ordering a drone flight over Pyongyang in 2024, essentially aiming to create a scenario that would justify enacting martial law.
