SEOUL: South Korea\u2019s special prosecutor is \u200bexpected to make a sentencing request for former president Yoon Suk Yeol on charges of insurrection over his brief imposition of martial law in 2024, as a lower court trial convened on Friday for its final session. Yoon, who is accused of masterminding an insurrection, could face the death penalty or life in prison under South Korean law if found guilty. South Korea has followed an unofficial moratorium for nearly 30 years and \u200chas not executed \u200ca death-row inmate since 1997.<\/p>\n
In hearings at the \u200cSeoul \u2060Central \u200bDistrict \u200cCourt, prosecutors have alleged Yoon and then-defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, began devising a scheme as far back as October 2023 to suspend parliament and take over legislative powers.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege Yoon sought to brand political opponents \u2014 including then-opposition leader Lee Jae Myung \u2014 as \u201canti-state forces\u201d and detain them. The then president and Kim also tried to manufacture a pretext for martial law by escalating tensions with North \u2060Korea through a covert drone operation, prosecutors have said.<\/p>\n
While the botched bid to impose martial law \u200clasted only about six hours, it sent shockwaves \u200dthrough Asia\u2019s fourth-largest economy, a key \u200dUS security ally and long considered one of Asia\u2019s most resilient democracies.<\/p>\n
Yoon, \u200d65, has denied the charges. The conservative has argued it was within his powers as president to declare martial law and that the action was aimed at sounding the alarm over opposition parties\u2019 obstruction of government.<\/p>\n
Dressed in a dark suit and \u200bwhite shirt and appearing noticeably thinner than at the start of the trial in February, Yoon sat with seven other defendants \u2060including Kim and legal counsel.<\/p>\n
The session opened earlier than usual for defense arguments, followed by the prosecutors\u2019 final arguments and sentencing requests relating to each of the defendants.<\/p>\n
The court is expected to rule in February, capping more than a year of political upheaval following Yoon\u2019s martial law declaration on December 3, 2024, which was revoked within hours after lawmakers scaled fences to break through a security cordon around the National Assembly to vote.<\/p>\n
Yoon was later impeached and removed from office by the Constitutional Court and a snap presidential election in June last year brought liberal-leaning Lee Jae Myung to power.<\/p>\n
Yoon faces a string \u200cof other criminal charges, including obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant and abuse of power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: South Korea\u2019s special prosecutor is \u200bexpected to make a sentencing request for former president Yoon Suk Yeol on charges of insurrection over his brief imposition of martial law in 2024, as a lower court trial convened on Friday for its final session. Yoon, who is accused of masterminding an insurrection, could face the death …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92038,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92023\/revisions\/92038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}