A South Korean appeals court has handed a seven-year prison sentence to former President Yoon Suk Yeol for resisting arrest and bypassing a legitimate Cabinet meeting before briefly imposing martial law in December 2024. This decision, announced on Wednesday, adds to Yoon’s existing life sentence for rebellion charges, which were part of an unprecedented authoritarian move that plunged the nation into its most severe democratic crisis in decades.
Judge Yoon Sung-sik of the Seoul High Court stated that the former conservative leader circumvented a legally required full Cabinet meeting prior to declaring martial law. He was found guilty of falsifying documents to hide this breach and deploying security forces as if they were his personal enforcers to evade arrest after his impeachment. Yoon remained silent as the court delivered the verdict.
Outside the Seoul High Court, a supporter of Yoon held up his portrait during a rally, showcasing the continued political divide surrounding his trial. (Image credit: Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Yoon’s legal representative, Yoo Jeong-hwa, expressed disappointment with the ruling and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. They are also challenging Yoon’s life sentence.
Previously, in January, a lower court had sentenced Yoon to five years in prison, though it partially acquitted him of abuse-of-power charges related to the Cabinet meeting, concluding that he was not accountable for the absence of two members who had been invited.
A lower court in January sentenced Yoon to five years in prison but partially cleared him of abuse-of-power charges tied to the Cabinet meeting ahead of the martial law declaration, finding he was not responsible for the failure to attend of two members who were invited.
The Seoul High Court reversed that acquittal, finding him guilty on all counts and ruling that he violated the rights of those two as well as seven other Cabinet members who weren’t notified by convening only a select few to simulate a formal meeting.
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Feb. 11, 2025. (Lee Jin-man/AP)
Though brief, Yoon’s Dec. 3, 2024, martial law decree threw the country into a severe political crisis, paralyzing politics and high-level diplomacy and rattling financial markets. The turmoil eased only after his liberal rival, Lee Jae Myung, won an early presidential election in June.
Yoon was suspended from office on Dec. 14, 2024, after being impeached by the liberal-led legislature and was formally removed by the Constitutional Court in April 2025.
Following his suspension from office, he refused to comply with a Seoul court’s warrant to detain him for questioning, setting up a standoff in which dozens of investigators arrived at the presidential residence in early January 2025 but were blocked by presidential security forces and vehicle barricades. He was detained later that month, released by another court in March, and was then re-arrested in July.
Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stage a rally outside the Seoul High Court in Seoul, South Korea, on April 29, 2026. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
He remained in custody after that as a series of criminal trials, which are continuing, began.
Wednesday’s ruling came a day after the same court increased to four years the sentence of Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, for charges including accepting luxury gifts from the Unification Church, which sought political favors from Yoon’s government, and involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme.
Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stage a rally outside the Seoul High Court in Seoul on April 29, 2026. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Prosecutors in a separate trial last week also requested a 30-year prison term for Yoon over allegations that he deliberately tried to escalate tensions with North Korea in 2024 by ordering drone flights over Pyongyang as he sought to create justifiable conditions for martial law at home.
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