A special counsel on Tuesday asked a court in Seoul to sentence South Korea’s impeached and ousted former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, to death, on the charge of leading an insurrection when he briefly imposed martial law on his country in late 2024.
The panel is expected to deliver its verdict and at the same time, sentence Mr. Yoon in the coming weeks. If Mr. Yoon is convicted, South Korea’s criminal code allows only of two punishments for him: the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Even if the court agrees to the special prosecutor’s demand for the death penalty, Mr. Yoon is unlikely to be executed. South Korea has not carried out any executions since December 1997. The last former president condemned to capital punishment later had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.
Mr. Yoon, 65, has been on trial for various criminal charges since he was arrested in January 2025. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel at the Seoul Central District Court held its last hearing on the insurrection charge. During that hearing, the special counsel argued for the death penalty.
Mr. Yoon declared martial law on the night of Dec. 3, 2024. It lasted only six hours, as the opposition-led National Assembly voted it down, while citizens blocked troops to prevent them from taking over the legislature.
Mr. Yoon’s attempt to place South Korea under martial law, for the first time since the country began democratizing in the 1980s, set off the country’s worst political crisis in decades.
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A Dissident’s Next Act: Kwon Pyong recounted for the first time the series of gambles that got him out of China by jet ski, and almost a year later, out of South Korea.
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Standoff With Doctors: Doctors at medical facilities across South Korea walked off the job in a one-day strike on June 18, expanding a months-old protest against the government’s health care policies.
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An Impeachment Threat: President Yoon Suk Yeol has been accused of intervening in an inquiry into the accidental death of a South Korean marine during a peacetime search and rescue operation.
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Parliament Election: South Koreans delivered a stinging defeat to Yoon and his party, giving the opposition one of its biggest electoral victories in recent decades and pushing Yoon to the verge of being a lame duck.
He was impeached by the Assembly and suspended from office less than two weeks after his imposition of martial law. When he was arrested on the insurrection charge, he became the first sitting president in South Korean history to face a criminal charge. He was formally expelled from office in April.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Yoon’s decision to ban all political activities and order military commanders to seize the National Assembly during the brief martial law amounted to an insurrection. They said Mr. Yoon conspired with the commanders and police chiefs to detain his enemies, including the speaker of the Assembly and opposition leaders.
During the martial law, troops also raided the National Election Commission, a constitutionally independent election watchdog, under Mr. Yoon’s order to collect evidence of voting fraud, they said.
Throughout his trial, Mr. Yoon denied the insurrection charge, saying that he never intended to neutralize the legislature or arrest political leaders. He said he declared martial law as “a warning” against an obstructive opposition that “paralyzed” his government. The troops were sent to the Assembly to “keep order,” he said.
The last South Korean leader accused of engineering an insurrection was the former dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who ruled South Korea from 1979 to 1988. Mr. Chun was arrested after he left office and was sentenced to death on insurrection and other charges, stemming from his military coup in 1979 and the massacre of pro-democracy protesters the following year.
Mr. Chun’s sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment. He was released in a presidential pardon in 1997 after serving two years in prison.
Military commanders who joined Mr. Yoon’s martial law were on a separate trial on the charge of aiding him in committing an insurrection. Other criminal charges against Mr. Yoon, such as perjury and obstruction of justice, were handled by different panels of judges in separate trials.
In one of them, Mr. Yoon faced the charge of sending military drones over North Korea in 2024 in an attempt to trigger instability on the Korean Peninsula and use it as an excuse to declare martial law. North Korea accused South Korea of sending drones at the time but did not respond with a military provocation.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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