South Korea: Ex-President Yoon to receive 1st court sentence this week in martial law trials

Seoul, Jan 15 Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will receive his first court verdict on charges stemming from his December 2024 imposition of martial law later this week, officials said on Thursday.

The Seoul Central District Court will hold the sentencing hearing of Yoon's trial on special obstruction of public duty and other charges in connection to his failed martial law bid at 2 p.m. Friday.

It marks Yoon's first sentencing of the eight cases he is standing trial on, including over charges he led an insurrection through his December 3 martial law declaration in 2024.

Friday's sentencing centres on charges Yoon blocked investigators from detaining him in January last year, violated the rights of nine Cabinet members who were not called to a meeting to review his martial law plan, and drafted and destroyed a revised proclamation after the decree was lifted.

Last month, special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team demanded the court sentence him to 10 years in prison for the charges, arguing the ousted leader "privatised" a national agency to conceal and justify his crimes, Yonhap news agency reported.

In the trial's closing statements, Yoon defended his use of the Presidential Security Service to block investigators from detaining him, claiming that presidential security cannot be too excessive, no matter the extent it goes.

The case will be the first of Yoon's trials to conclude and takes place before another bench of the Seoul Central District Court will deliver a verdict on his insurrection trial on February 19.

On Tuesday, the special counsel team demanded the death penalty for the former president on charges of leading an insurrection through his martial law declaration.

Yoon's remaining six cases include those brought by two other special counsel teams that separately investigated corruption allegations surrounding his wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, and alleged interference in a probe into the 2023 death of a Marine.

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