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A South Korean court will deliver its verdict on Thursday in the trial of the country’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol, who is charged with insurrection over an attempt to impose martial law.
He could face the death sentence if convicted.
The ruling from the Seoul Central District Court will cap a dramatic episode that plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades and tested the strength of its 39-year-old democracy.
Prosecutors have requested the death penalty for Yoon, citing the former president’s “lack of remorse”. He could also be sentenced to life imprisonment. Either sentence would be the first for a democratically elected Korean president.
The insurrection case is the most consequential in an ongoing series of legal proceedings against Yoon, 65, over his shock declaration of martial law in December 2024.
Last month, he was sentenced to five years in prison in a related case involving obstruction of justice, abuse of power and falsification of official documents.
Yoon’s attempt to impose military rule triggered widespread protests and an emergency vote by the national assembly to reject his decree. He was later impeached by parliament and removed from office.
Several other senior officials have received jail sentences in relation to the crisis. Former prime minister Han Duck-soo, who served as acting president after Yoon’s impeachment, received a 23-year prison sentence for his role in facilitating the emergency measures. Former interior minister Lee Sang-min was also sentenced to seven years.
Prosecutors have attributed Yoon’s motivations to a sense of crisis brought on by the opposition-controlled assembly continually blocking legislation and pushing for corruption investigations into his wife, Kim Keon Hee.
Yoon has denied the charges, arguing his actions were intended as a warning rather than an attempt to establish dictatorial rule.
Experts have said that even if Yoon receives the death penalty, it is unlikely to be carried out. South Korea last carried out an execution in 1997.
Former president Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power in a military coup and ordered a massacre of civilians in the south-western city of Gwangju in 1980, was sentenced to death in 1996. But it was commuted to life in prison and he was released after a presidential pardon in 1997.
Yoon retains a vocal base of rightwing supporters who view his prosecution as politically motivated and who have continued to hold regular protests, though participation has declined. His People Power Party trails President Lee Jae Myung’s Democratic Party by 22 percentage points in opinion polls four months out from local elections.
