A court in South Korea has sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of abusing his presidential powers and orchestrating unrest in December 2024 in an attempt to impose martial law.
Yoon was convicted of seeking to deploy the military to the National Assembly ofSouth Korea to remove opposition lawmakers and have them detained. The court also found that he ordered soldiers and police to secure and block access to opposition party offices, preventing their members from entering.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty. Heavy security was in place at the court in Seoul as the verdict was read, with large numbers of police officers and vehicles forming a security cordon around the courthouse.
In January 2026, prosecutors argued that Yoon’s attempt to declare the country under wartime emergency carried out in violation of existing laws and the constitution seriously disrupted the functioning of the National Assembly and the National Election Commission.
Under South Korean law, those found guilty of masterminding unrest face either the death penalty or life imprisonment. While death sentences were last handed down in 2016, no execution has been carried out since 1997.
Yoon came to power in 2022 and was removed from office in 2025. On 3 December 2024, he announced that the country was under martial law, citing what he described as “anti-state activities” by opposition lawmakers in parliament. The declaration lasted less than six hours before the National Assembly voted to overturn it and impeachment proceedings were launched.
In April 2025, the Constitutional Court of Korea ordered Yoon’s removal from office, bringing an end to his presidency and paving the way for the criminal proceedings that culminated in Monday’s life sentence.