Insurrection is ‘unforgivable crime,’ prosecutors say
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol again faced a demand for the death penalty Thursday as special prosecutors argued that his life sentence for leading an insurrection was too lenient.
Special counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team had also sought the death penalty at his first trial, but the court sentenced him to life imprisonment in February.
At the Seoul High Court, the team said there was “no reason to hesitate to impose the death penalty” over Yoon’s Dec. 3, 2024, martial law declaration.
Special prosecutors challenged the lower court’s findings that the operation did not appear meticulously planned, that martial law ended quickly and that the use of force was restrained.
They attributed the operation’s failure to public resistance and soldiers’ and police officers’ reluctance to follow orders, rather than restraint by Yoon. Martial law ended because the National Assembly demanded its lifting, they said.
The team also disputed treating Yoon’s public service career as a mitigating factor, arguing that he had used knowledge gained as a prosecutor to commit the crime.
Special prosecutors described the elected president’s “self-coup” as an unforgivable crime against the constitutional order that sought to turn Korea’s clock back 40 years.
They argued that the lower court had applied Supreme Court precedents only partially and taken too narrow a view of the insurrection’s preparations and aims.
Closing proceedings will continue on Tuesday and 5. The court plans to announce the sentencing date after Yoon’s lawyers' closing arguments and his final statement on Nov. 5.
Yoon was indicted while in detention in January 2025. The lower court found that his deployment of troops to the National Assembly constituted a riot aimed at subverting the constitutional order.
He became the second former president convicted of leading an insurrection, after Chun Doo-hwan.
shwang9@heraldcorp.com
