In brief
In a momentous appeal proceeding at the Seoul High Court, special counsel Cho Eun‑suk’s team requested the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk‑yeol on insurrection charges stemming from his brief martial‑law declaration. The court will hold two further hearings before establishing a final sentence while Yoon’s defense maintains the move was a warning to an opposition‑dominated parliament.
On Thursday, the Seoul High Court heard a new request from special counsel Cho Eun‑suk’s team to impose the death penalty on former President Yoon Suk‑yeol for insurrection arising from his December 2024 martial‑law declaration, eight months after a lower court sentenced Yoon to life imprisonment for staging a riot (Yonhap).
The request, identical to the one filed during the first‑instance trial, comes as the appellate court schedules two additional hearings before setting a sentencing date, with Yoon’s final statement planned for the following Thursday (Xinhua).
Cho’s team argued that Yoon’s unilateral declaration of martial law—issued at 11:00 p.m. on December 3, 2024 to “eradicate anti‑state forces”—violated the Constitution, with troops deployed to the National Assembly compound for six hours before the order was rescinded by a parliamentary vote (Yonhap).
“There is no reason to hesitate to hand down the death penalty,” a member of the counsel team said, adding that “the strongest argument for objection to the death penalty is the possibility of a misjudgment just in case, but in this case, there is no room for that” (Yonhap).
Legal experts note that South Korean criminal law permits only the death penalty, life imprisonment, or life imprisonment without labor for the ringleader of an insurrection, so the court must choose between capital punishment and life terms (Xinhua).
Yoon, who was removed from office by a constitutional court ruling to impeach him in April 2025, maintains that his martial‑law move was a warning to the opposition‑controlled parliament, which had repeatedly impeached senior officials and sought to cut the state budget (Xinhua).
The sentencing plea challenges the lower court’s life‑imprisonment ruling, with Yoon’s defense arguing that executing the death penalty is inconsistent with South Korea’s “death‑penalty abolitionist in practice” status, as the punishment has not been carried out since December 1997 (Yonhap).
Amnesty International has stated that while South Korea retains the death penalty on its books, it has been effectively abolished in practice, and the current request reignites debate over the country’s stance on capital punishment (Yonhap).
Observers highlight that this case marks the first time that a former Korean President will be tried for an attempted coup, raising questions about the limits of executive power and the precedent it may set for future leaders (Xinhua).
Analysts suggest that the appellate court’s decision will be closely watched both domestically and internationally, as it could influence South Korea’s future criminal sentencing policy and its image as a democracy (Yonhap).
