A South Korean court sentenced the country’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment this Thursday after being found guilty of leading an insurrection, in relation to his controversial decision to declare martial law in the Asian country in December 2024.
Thus, the court has ruled that the decree approved by Yoon meets the legal criteria of an “insurrection”, although it has declined to impose the death sentence against him, as the Prosecutor’s Office had demanded, according to the South Korean newspaper ‘The Korea Times’.
The court has indicated that the former president was “the leader of an insurrection” when considering that the declaration of martial law violated the authority of Parliament, an action that falls within said definition. “Although the elements of the crime are recognized, several factors were considered when determining the punishment,” he maintained.
There were only two scenarios: either the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Under the South Korean Penal Code, the crime of leading acts of insurrection leads to three possible scenarios: the death penalty, life imprisonment or life imprisonment free of forced labor.
The martial law imposed in December 2024 was annulled several hours later by the National Assembly, which approved a resolution demanding its withdrawal. In the following weeks, deputies voted to remove the president from office and, in April 2025, he was finally dismissed after the Constitutional Court confirmed the impeachment process against him.
