Category: News

SEOUL — A South Korean court is set to issue its verdict Thursday in the insurrection case against the country’s impeached president, who declared martial law in an alleged power grab in late 2024, and now faces the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted.

The impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been on trial for his failed attempt to install a military-led government in the democratic country late one night in December 2024. Yoon is charged with numerous crimes, including organizing an insurrection — which under South Korean criminal law carries possible sentences of life imprisonment, with or without labor, or death.

Prosecutors have requested the death sentence.

The case marks a pivotal moment in South Korea’s relatively young democratic history, which dates to 1987 after a democratic uprising toppled a brutal military-led government under Chun Doo-hwan. Chun was sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted on similar insurrection charges for seizing power during a coup in 1979. On appeal, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was later pardoned.

Yoon’s conviction would uphold the rule of law and reaffirm the nation’s democratic system and principles, democracy advocates and experts say.

“The conviction of an ex-president demonstrates that no one is above the law,” said Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies in Washington, adding: “The conviction of Yoon through the judicial process reflects South Korea’s democratic resilience.”

If convicted, Yoon, too, ultimately could be spared execution.

South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997 and is widely regarded as a country where, for all practical purposes, the death penalty is banned.

A death sentence for Yoon, nonetheless, would be highly symbolic as delivering accountability for a head of state who went rogue and attempted to use military force to halt operations of the legislature, seize control of the National Election Commission and arrest political opponents.

“In practical terms, a death sentence would almost certainly remain symbolic, but the symbolism would be immense,” said Hannah Kim, a political scientist at Sogang University in Seoul. “It would reflect a judicial judgment that a ‘palace coup’ led by the constitutional guardian of the state is not just political misconduct, but a direct attack on constitutional sovereignty and the democratic order.”

A lesser sentence of life in prison would still convey the seriousness of Yoon’s actions but would reflect “a degree of pragmatism among the justices,” Yeo said, especially in a deeply polarized country still reeling from the fallout of the declaration of martial law.

Two top aides to Yoon have been convicted on charges related to the decree of martial law. Former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was sentenced last month to 23 years in prison for his role. Han is appealing the ruling. And former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min last week was sentenced to seven years in prison. He is also appealing the ruling, according to national media reports.

In both cases, the court deemed the declaration of martial law an act of insurrection, which legal experts said was a key determination that could seal Yoon’s conviction Thursday.

Yoon is facing eight separate trials stemming from his decree, but the insurrection case to be decided Thursday is the most consequential. Last month, a Seoul court sentenced him to five years in prison for abuse of power, obstruction of justice and falsifying documents, meaning Yoon will not go free even if acquitted.

For many South Koreans, Yoon’s insurrection trial may feel familiar.

Yoon is expected to stand in Courtroom 417 of the Seoul Central District Court, the same room where Chun, wearing a light blue prison jumpsuit, was sentenced to death nearly 30 years ago.

During their sentencing request last month, prosecutors argued Yoon deserved the harshest possible penalty, citing the need to stop “history from repeating itself.” They referred to Chun’s case and South Korea’s authoritarian past.

Yoon has denied all charges and contends that martial law was a legitimate exercise of the president’s emergency powers. Yoon has said that he declared martial law to confront the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which he said was paralyzing his administration through repeated efforts to impeach top officials. He has denied that the brief deployment of troops to the National Assembly was an act of insurrection.

Yoon’s late-night decree on Dec. 3, 2024, made in a televised address, prompted thousands of protesters to mass outside the National Assembly and demand a return to democratic governance.

As soldiers and police surrounded the National Assembly complex, lawmakers scaled the walls to bypass them. In defiance of the decree’s ban on political activity, they voted to reverse Yoon’s decision. And despite a gag order on the press, reporters from traditional and independent media alike flooded the scene and delivered live reports.

Yoon lifted his order six hours later, but the incident shocked and outraged the nation — now a thriving democracy where political protests and marches of all stripes are a weekly occurrence — and it spurred South Korea’s most harrowing political crisis in decades.

Yoon was impeached with his presidential powers suspended less than two weeks later, and ultimately removed from office.

Yoon, formerly the nation’s top prosecutor, was a divisive president during his more than 2½ years in power. Rather than seeking to unify the deeply divided nation, Yoon instead appealed to his conservative base, exacerbating polarization and often deadlocking with opposition lawmakers.

South Korean presidents are often disgraced. Nearly every president since South Korea’s democratization has become embroiled in scandals involving corruption, bribery, embezzlement, or abuse of power.

Yoon’s downfall, however, stands apart even by South Korean standards, as the first democratically elected president to impose martial law and the first sitting president to face a criminal investigation.

U.S.-mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Geneva, Switzerland, broke off on Wednesday without any significant progress or indication that Russia was ready to step back from its maximalist demands for subjugating Ukraine.

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, tersely said the talks had been “difficult but businesslike” and had ended after just two hours of discussions on Wednesday following longer conversations the previous day.

The reappearance of Medinsky, known to be a hard-line aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as head of the Kremlin’s delegation had signified that Russia was digging in its heels on core demands — including significant cuts to the Ukrainian military, the dismantling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and guarantees for Ukraine’s neutrality, analysts said.

Moscow has insisted that these steps are required to address what it describes as the “root causes” of the war. Ukraine’s position is that Russia’s invasion was unprovoked and that Moscow should end its illegal war of aggression and remove its troops that are occupying Ukrainian territory.

Russian analysts said Moscow’s demands encompassed a far wider spectrum of issues than the territorial swaps proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration as a path to end the war.

“As long as there is an armed anti-Russia on Ukrainian territory, there can be no peace,” said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst. “I don’t think anyone had any big hopes that the talks would end in success. The positions are very, very far from each other.”

“The idea of territorial swaps for peace is not Russia’s idea,” Markov added. “It is Trump’s.”

Proponents of territorial exchanges envision that Russia would withdraw from some areas it occupies in Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing its military from parts of the heavily fortified Donbas area, which Putin has failed to capture during four years of full-scale war.

Zelensky’s administration has previously said it could agree to withdraw troops from the Donbas area. But Kyiv has said it would agree to a pullback only if the region becomes a demilitarized zone and if the United States first provides legally watertight security guarantees.

Zelensky told reporters on Wednesday that the talks on “political” issues such as Russian demands for Ukraine to withdraw its forces from “the east” were “not easy” and that differences remain. But Zelensky also sought to put a positive spin on some of the trilateral discussions between Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Geneva, saying they had been “constructive” on ways to monitor any potential ceasefire.

Zelensky appealed again at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend for U.S.-backed guarantees before he signs on to any deal with Russia to end the war. “Those guarantees answer the main question: how long there will be no war again,” he said then.

The direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have stalled for weeks over core differences, namely territorial concessions, control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russia in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, and questions about Western guarantees for Kyiv, according to two European diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

“So far the Russian position is no boots on the ground from NATO allies, so there are outstanding points: territory, security guarantees and the future of the Zaporizhzhia plant,” one of those diplomats said. “Those are the big sticking points, so we need to see if it really happens.”

In meetings with U.S. officials late last year, Ukraine’s chief European backers were encouraged by the U.S. interest in playing a role in securing a settlement to the war. France and Britain have led a coalition of allies planning ways to provide Ukraine with a U.S.-backed bulwark against future attack, including with some European troops and air or sea power.

Still, the Trump administration appeared to want to sign a deal before fully committing, while Kyiv has maintained it needs the Western protection baked into any settlement, the diplomats said. Russia, meanwhile, has ruled out any presence of Western soldiers in Ukraine.

Zelensky, who met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the weekend, has stressed Kyiv’s refusal to cede territory in the east that Russia does not militarily control and said Ukraine could only hold elections if there is a ceasefire.

Analysts said it was clear the Kremlin had no intention of making any concessions.

“As long as Putin is in power, Russia isn’t paralyzed by widespread protests, and there is at least some money left in the budget for weapons, the war will continue,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, in a post on X. “The Kremlin will not make significant concessions even if faced with a protracted financial and economic crisis.”

“That means there will be no final settlement either now or in the foreseeable future,” Stanovaya added. “Negotiations may intensify, a short-term ceasefire is possible, and documents may even be signed. But overall, this simulation of negotiations can only lead to the simulation of a ceasefire and the simulation of a settlement.”

Russia has been facing increasing economic pressure after the U.S. administration imposed tough new sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in October.

The measures caused Russian oil revenue to plummet as Moscow was forced to accept discounts of more than $20 per barrel on its exports. Economists have warned of a nonpayment crisis as the economy grinds to a halt amid high inflation and high interest rates of 15.5% imposed by the Central Bank.

Analysts say there are concerns in the Kremlin that Moscow could face a narrowing window to reach an advantageous deal because the Trump administration could grow distracted as midterm elections near — and then potentially could be weakened by the results.