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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 16 Jan 202616 Jan 2026<\/p>\n
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A court in South Korea has sentenced the country\u2019s former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, to five years in jail after finding him guilty on charges stemming from his declaration of martial law in December 2024.<\/p>\n
Yoon was found guilty on Friday of charges that include obstructing authorities from executing an arrest warrant related to his martial law declaration, as well as fabricating official documents and failing to comply with the legal process required to impose martial law.<\/p>\n
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At Seoul\u2019s Central District Court on Friday, Judge Baek Dae-hyun said Yoon had failed to uphold the Constitution and rule of law.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite having a duty, above all others, to uphold the Constitution and observe the rule of law as president, the defendant instead displayed an attitude that disregarded the\u2026 Constitution,\u201d Baek said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant\u2019s culpability is extremely grave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yoon now has seven days to appeal the verdict, the judge added.<\/p>\n
Speaking outside the court immediately after the ruling, one of Yoon\u2019s lawyers, Yoo Jung-hwa, said the former president would appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe express regret that the decision was made in a politicised manner,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s ruling is the first related to a range of criminal charges Yoon faces over his botched attempt to impose martial law, which lasted only around six hours but sent shockwaves through South Korean society, which was long considered one of the world\u2019s most stable democracies.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Jack Barton, reporting from South Korea\u2019s capital Seoul, said Yoon\u2019s supporters had gathered outside the court on Friday and were chanting to express their unhappiness with the verdict.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a good sign,\u201d Barton said, explaining that the ex-president still faces the most serious charge of insurrection, which carries a death sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese charges are not really related to the main event. That is the insurrection trial that is still ongoing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, guilty on all of those charges and, again, this feeds into that main trial [for insurrection]. We are expecting that verdict in February,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Yoon was previously impeached, arrested and then dismissed as president after his short-lived martial law attempt, which triggered huge public protests calling for his removal.<\/p>\n
But Yoon has remained defiant and has insisted he broke no laws.<\/p>\n
He has argued in court that it was within his powers as president to declare martial law and that the action was aimed at sounding the alarm over the obstruction of government work by opposition parties.<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s official Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday that the five-year sentence handed to Yoon was half of what had been requested by Special Counsel Cho Eun-suk\u2019s team of lawyers.<\/p>\n
Yonhap also said the guilty ruling is likely to have implications for the verdict in Yoon\u2019s insurrection trial, which is due next month.<\/p>\n
Special prosecutors in the insurrection case earlier this week demanded the death penalty for Yoon, Yonhap said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Former President Yoon Suk Yeol found guilty of obstructing justice and other charges related to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1204,4,450,451,4379,3,111,1866,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-410462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-south-korea","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}