Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stage a rally outdoors of the Seoul Excessive Court docket in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 29, 2026.
Ahn Younger-joon/AP
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Ahn Younger-joon/AP
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean appeals court docket on Wednesday sentenced ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol to seven years in jail for resisting arrest and bypassing a respectable Cupboard assembly earlier than his transient imposition of martial regulation in December 2024.
The conviction for obstruction of justice and different expenses comes on prime of a life sentence he has already obtained on riot expenses stemming from his baffling authoritarian push, which triggered essentially the most critical disaster for the nation’s democracy in a long time.
Decide Yoon Sung-sik of the Seoul Excessive Court docket stated the conservative former president sidestepped a legally mandated full Cupboard assembly earlier than declaring martial regulation, falsified paperwork to hide the lapse, and deployed safety officers “like a private army” to withstand regulation enforcement efforts to arrest him within the weeks following his impeachment. Former President Yoon stood quietly as the decision was delivered and made no remark.
A supporter of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol holds up his portrait throughout a rally outdoors of the Seoul Excessive Court docket in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 29, 2026.
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Yoo Jeong-hwa, considered one of Yoon’s attorneys, referred to as the decision “very disappointing” and stated the authorized workforce would attraction to the Supreme Court docket. Yoon has additionally appealed his life sentence.
A decrease court docket in January sentenced Yoon to 5 years in jail however partially cleared him of abuse-of-power expenses tied to the Cupboard assembly forward of the martial regulation declaration, discovering he was not chargeable for the failure to attend of two members who had been invited.
The Seoul Excessive Court docket reversed that acquittal, discovering him responsible on all counts and ruling that he violated the rights of these two in addition to seven different Cupboard members who weren’t notified by convening solely a choose few to simulate a proper assembly.
Although transient, Yoon’s Dec. 3, 2024, martial regulation decree threw the nation right into a extreme political disaster, paralyzing politics and high-level diplomacy and rattling monetary markets. The turmoil eased solely after his liberal rival, Lee Jae Myung, received an early presidential election in June.
Yoon was suspended from workplace on Dec. 14, 2024, after being impeached by the liberal-led legislature and was formally eliminated by the Constitutional Court docket in April 2025.
Following his suspension from workplace, he refused to adjust to a Seoul court docket’s warrant to detain him for questioning, establishing a standoff during which dozens of investigators arrived on the presidential residence in early January 2025 however had been blocked by presidential safety forces and automobile barricades. He was detained later that month, launched by one other court docket in March, and was then re-arrested in July.
He remained in custody after that as a sequence of prison trials, that are persevering with, started.
Wednesday’s ruling got here a day after the identical court docket elevated to 4 years the sentence of Yoon’s spouse, Kim Keon Hee, for expenses together with accepting luxurious presents from the Unification Church, which sought political favors from Yoon’s authorities, and involvement in a inventory worth manipulation scheme.
Prosecutors in a separate trial final week additionally requested a 30-year jail time period for Yoon over allegations that he intentionally tried to escalate tensions with North Korea in 2024 by ordering drone flights over Pyongyang as he sought to create justifiable circumstances for martial regulation at residence.
