S. KOREA EX-PRESIDENT YOON GETS LIFE SENTENCE OVER MARTIAL LAW BID

SEOUL, Feb 19 (Bernama-Yonhap) -- A South Korea court on Thursday sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison for his failed bid to impose martial law in 2024, Yonhap News Agency reported.

In the first ruling on the case, the Seoul Central District Court convicted Yoon of leading an insurrection through the martial law bid but handed down a sentence lighter than the death penalty recommended by special prosecutors.

The ruling came 14 months after the former president made the surprise declaration of martial law on Dec 3, 2024, with the stated aim of eradicating anti-state forces, though the order was lifted six hours later following a vote by the National Assembly.

"It is difficult to deny that former President Yoon inwardly aimed to make the National Assembly unable to function properly for a considerable period by blocking and paralysing the National Assembly's activities by means of sending troops to the National Assembly to seal it off and arrest key politicians," Jee Kui-youn, the presiding judge, said during the hearing attended by Yoon and broadcast live on national television.

"It is also recognised that he staged a riot by sending the military."

Under the Constitution, an insurrection is defined as an act aimed at removing state authority from part or all of the country or the staging of a riot with the purpose of subverting the Constitution.

The court said the declaration of martial law in itself cannot constitute an insurrection, but that in Yoon's case, the charge held because he aimed to paralyse the functions of a constitutional body.

It also stressed that at the core of the case was Yoon's deployment of troops to the National Assembly.

"Former President Yoon planned the crime personally and in a leading role, and involved many people in the crime," the judge said in explaining the reason for the sentence.

"The emergency martial law incurred an enormous social cost, and the defendant hardly expressed an apology for that."

The court noted, however, that the plan did not appear thorough, the use of physical force was limited, and that the former president had no prior criminal convictions, served as a public servant for decades and was currently at a relatively advanced age of 65 years.

Seven other defendants received their first verdicts alongside Yoon, including former Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun, former National Police Agency chief Cho Ji-ho and former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency chief Kim Bong-sik.

The former defence minister was sentenced to 30 years in prison, while Cho was given 12 years and the former Seoul police chief 10 years for their roles in the martial law bid.

Yoon has already been sentenced to five years in prison in a separate trial on charges that include his alleged obstruction of investigators' attempt to detain him last year.

The courtroom where Thursday's proceedings were held was the same place where former President Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death in 1996 for his roles in a 1979 coup that installed him in power and the military's violent suppression of the Gwangju democratisation movement in 1980.

-- BERNAMA-YONHAP