South Korea ex-minister gets 25 years for role in martial law disaster: Yonhap

SEOUL: A court sentenced a former South Korean justice minister on Monday to 25 years in prison for his role in ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief and disastrous declaration of martial law in 2024.

Park Sung-jae was found guilty of involvement in “insurrection”, the Yonhap news agency reported from the Seoul Central District Court.

Yoon’s December 2024 martial law declaration lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session.

He has since been convicted of leading an insurrection, and is in detention while appealing a life sentence.

Yoon was also given a 30-year jail term earlier this month for sending drones to North Korea to “manufacture a national crisis” to justify his martial law.

Park had held a meeting of justice ministry officials in the early hours of the martial law and checked on prison capacity should the authorities arrest anti-government figures, prosecutors said.

As justice minister, he “instructed cooperation with the martial law command… on the assumption that a decree would be effective,” Yonhap quoted from the verdict.

Prosecutors had sought a 20-year sentence for Park, arguing he had “reduced the law to a tool of insurrection in his abuse of power and posed a challenge to the rule of law.”

They said he had shown no remorse.

Yoon’s shock late-night national televised address plunged South Korea into an unprecedented political crisis.

It triggered protests, sent the stock market plunging and caught key allies like the United States off-guard.

A circle of Yoon subordinates have been given hefty sentences.

Former prime minister Han Duck-soo, who once toyed with a presidential run himself, is serving a 15 years in prison, and former interior minister Lee Sang-min nine years.

Last week, former defence minister was sentenced to three years in prison for revealing classified military information in furtherance of the insurrection.

Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee is serving a four-year term for stock manipulation and bribery unrelated to the martial law fiasco.