Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, arrives for a listening to on the Constitutional Courtroom of Korea in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
South Korea’s particular prosecutor has requested the demise penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his brief–lived martial legislation declaration in 2024.
The request got here as Yoon’s trial wrapped up late Tuesday. The court docket is predicted to ship its ruling on Feb. 19.
Yoon has been charged with main an rebel, against the law that isn’t shielded by presidential immunity and carries the utmost penalty of demise.
If carried out, it will be South Korea’s first execution in nearly 30 years.
Amnesty Worldwide has categorised the nation as “abolitionist in apply,” noting that whereas South Korea nonetheless retains the demise penalty, it has not executed anybody since 1997.
In the course of the last listening to, particular counsel Cho Eun-suk’s crew stated that Yoon declared martial legislation “with the aim of remaining in energy for a very long time by seizing the judiciary and legislature,” in line with South Korean media reviews.
Yoon reportedly maintained his innocence, saying the declaration was inside his constitutional authority and was supposed to “safeguard freedom and sovereignty.”
On the time, Yoon accused the then–opposition Democratic Celebration of Korea of participating in “anti-state actions” and colluding with “North Korean communists.”
On Dec 3, 2024, Yoon ordered troops to the nation’s Nationwide Meeting after declaring martial legislation in a late-night tackle. Troopers blocked entry and clashed with protesters and lawmakers as particular forces tried to enter the chamber.
However inside three hours, the martial legislation order was overturned after 190 of the 300 Nationwide Meeting lawmakers managed to assemble within the chamber and unanimously voted to overturn the decree. Yoon finally lifted martial legislation about six hours after asserting it.
The final navy coup in South Korea occurred in 1979, when the then-army normal Chun Doo-hwan seized management following the assassination of President Park Chung-hee.
Chun later expanded martial legislation nationwide in 1980, a transfer that led to the 1980 Gwangju rebellion, throughout which troops violently suppressed protests within the southwestern metropolis of Gwangju that left wherever between 200 and a pair of,000 civilians killed.
On the time, Chun’s authorities accused the rebellion of being instigated by “North Korean communists and gangsters.”
In 1996, Chun was handed the demise penalty for his position within the 1979 coup, although his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
