Prosecutors demand a decade in prison for South Korea’s former leader Yoon Suk Yeol, doubling his initial sentence for obstructing justice over martial law.
SEOUL: A special counsel team has demanded a 10-year prison sentence for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol during the appeals trial for his obstruction of justice case.
The prosecution sought the term at the final hearing at the Seoul High Court, which is double the five-year sentence handed down by a lower court in January.
Yoon was convicted by the lower court of obstructing investigators from detaining him last year and calling only select Cabinet members to a meeting to review his martial law plan.
He was also found guilty of creating and then discarding a false proclamation after the martial law decree was lifted but acquitted of charges that he ordered the distribution of false press statements.
“The nature of the crime is bad, as he abused his position as president to destroy the constitutional order and privatised state power,” a special counsel team member said, referring to Yoon’s alleged orders to the Presidential Security Service to block his detention.
The prosecutor added that Yoon had an opportunity to apologise to the people since the first ruling but continues to claim his innocence with consistent excuses.
The bench will later hear the final arguments of Yoon’s lawyers and his own final statement during the session.
The court is expected to deliver its ruling before the end of June, as sentencing hearings are typically held within two months of closing arguments.
Yoon has been standing trial for a total of eight cases connected to his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024, his wife’s alleged corruption and the 2023 death of a Marine.
In the main case, a court sentenced him in February to life imprisonment for leading an insurrection through his declaration of martial law.
The former president has been jailed since July pending the outcomes of his various trials.