Yoon Suk Yeol, the impeached president of South Korea, was found guilty of insurrection and sentenced to life in prison on Thursday over his failed attempt to impose martial law on the U.S. ally.
The highly anticipated ruling, delivered by a Seoul court, was broadcast across the nation. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for Yoon, whose short-lived power grab sent the Asian democracy into political turmoil.
The verdict and sentence was handed down by a three-judge panel at Seoul’s Central District Court, where Yoon’s supporters and critics gathered amid heightened security.
Yoon, 65, had pleaded not guilty to insurrection, the most serious of a range of charges he faces in connection with his 2024 martial law order. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty in the case.
The court also found Yoon had subverted the constitutional order and abused his authority by ordering troops to storm parliament and arrest certain individuals including Lee Jae Myung, the liberal opposition leader at the time who is now South Korea’s president.
In a statement after the verdict, lawyers for Yoon criticized the trial as “nothing more than a mere formality to reach a predetermined conclusion.” Yoon has the right to appeal.
Facing rulings alongside him were seven former military officers and senior police officials accused of participating in the imposition of martial law, including former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, with prosecutors seeking prison terms of 10 years to life. Kim was also found guilty of insurrection and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik, whom Yoon had also targeted for arrest, said after the verdict that Yoon “should now acknowledge his wrongdoing and offer a sincere apology to the people.”
“Now is the time to stop deepening division and conflict in our society through claims that deny or distort the fundamental order of our democratic republic,” Woo said.
Yoon’s martial law order, the first of its kind in South Korea in more than 40 years, shocked a country that became one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies after having spent decades under military-authoritarian rule. South Korea was mired in months of political uncertainty as the chaos from the decree was followed by Yoon’s impeachment and a power vacuum at the top of government.
The episode has also deeply divided the politically polarized public, with Yoon’s conservative supporters cheering his attempts to fight impeachment and arrest in an echo of scenes in the United States. On Thursday, hundreds of Yoon supporters stood outside the court watching the proceedings on a screen, while critics of Yoon also gathered at a protest nearby.
The crisis began in December 2024 with Yoon’s surprise late-night announcement in a nationally televised address that he was suspending civilian government in South Korea, including a ban on all political activity and censorship of the news media.
Yoon, who was elected president in 2022, said the martial law order was necessary because “anti-state” forces in the opposition-controlled parliament had paralyzed the government through budget cuts and efforts to impeach multiple senior officials.
The order did not last long, however, as lawmakers rushed to the National Assembly in dramatic overnight scenes, pushing past troops sent there by Yoon and voting unanimously against it in an emergency session. Yoon lifted the order about six hours after he imposed it.
Lawmakers impeached Yoon about 10 days later, and in January 2025 he became South Korea’s first president to be arrested while in office. South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment in April.
Yoon, a former prosecutor, also faces eight criminal trials over the martial law order and other allegations, and he was sentenced to five years in prison last month in the first of those verdicts. He is appealing that ruling.
Other trials are still ongoing, including one in which he is charged with treason after he was accused of ordering that drones be sent into North Korean airspace to provoke a confrontation that could justify martial law.
Yoon denies wrongdoing, saying that he had the right as president to declare martial law and that the order was a short-term, symbolic effort to raise public awareness of the threat from opposition lawmakers.
Prosecutors in the insurrection trial said that the martial law order was a long-planned effort to extend Yoon’s rule indefinitely in violation of the constitution and that he was driven by a “lust for power.”
Other officials from Yoon’s administration have also received prison terms over their roles in carrying out the martial law order. Former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, 76, was sentenced to 23 years last month, while former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min, 61, was sentenced to seven years last week.
President Lee said ahead of the verdict Thursday that his country was “a model for human history,” noting reports this week that the people of South Korea had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for resisting the martial law order.
It’s possible that Yoon could get a presidential pardon one day, said Bong Young Shik, a visiting professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. He pointed to the case of former President Chun Doo-hwan, who was also sentenced to life in prison for insurrection in 1996 but was later freed.
But that was a long time ago, Bong said, and public sentiment in South Korea — where democratic values have become deeply embedded in recent decades — “may not be so forgiving for President Yoon this time.”
It will take time to “close the wound” created by the martial law episode given the divisions around it, Bong said. But ironically, he added, the fierce support for Yoon in some quarters “testifies to the maturity and strength of South Korean democracy.”
“We are going to live with diverse voices, some of which may be very difficult to accept by people with different political ideologies and opinions,” Bong said. “But South Korean society will continue to exist with a variety of competing visions about how the country should be.”
