News: South Korea's Former President Yoon Suk Yeol Sentenced to Life in Prison for Leading Insurrection — A Democracy's Reckoning With Its Most Serious Crisis in Decades
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor on Thursday after a Seoul court found him guilty of leading an insurrection through his brief but dramatic declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. The ruling, delivered by Seoul Central District Court Judge Jee Kui-youn and broadcast live on national television, marks the most severe sentence handed to a democratically elected South Korean president and represents a watershed moment for the country's hard-won democratic institutions. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, arguing that Yoon's mobilization of military and police forces to seize the National Assembly, arrest opposition politicians, and suspend political activities constituted "a grave destruction of constitutional order." The court opted for life imprisonment instead, noting that while the crime was exceptionally grave, Yoon's planning had not been meticulous, he had attempted to limit the use of physical force, and most of his plans ultimately failed. Under South Korean law, the charge of leading an insurrection carries only three possible penalties: death, life imprisonment with labor, or life imprisonment without labor. The verdict arrives 14 months after the six-hour crisis that plunged Asia's fourth-largest economy into its deepest political turmoil in over four decades, shattered international confidence in South Korean stability, and left a once-vibrant democracy bitterly polarized between conservative and progressive camps. Outside the courthouse on Thursday, those divisions were on vivid display — hundreds of Yoon supporters waving flags and chanting "Yoon, again" clashed verbally with progressive protesters demanding the death penalty, as roughly 1,000 police officers maintained an uneasy perimeter.