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South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, in the first insurrection trial of a Korean head of state in three decades.
Prosecutors characterised the case as the “serious destruction of constitutional order by anti-state forces”, telling Seoul central district court that Yoon had “directly and fundamentally infringed upon the safety of the state and the survival and freedom of the people”.
Under South Korea’s criminal code, insurrection ringleader charges carry just three possible sentences: the death penalty, life imprisonment with labour, or life imprisonment without labour. A verdict is expected in mid-February.
Prosecutors demanded life imprisonment with labour for former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, describing him as having “moved as one body” with Yoon throughout the conspiracy.
Yoon deployed troops to the national assembly on the night of 3 December 2024, allegedly ordering them to prevent lawmakers from voting to lift his martial law declaration.
The six-hour crisis ended when 190 MPs broke through military cordons to pass an emergency resolution, forcing Yoon to back down. Parliament impeached him on 14 December, and the constitutional court removed him from office in April 2025.
A snap election brought Yoon’s rival, Lee Jae Myung, to power.
Prosecutors told the court Yoon began planning the operation before October 2023 to “monopolise power through long-term rule”, strategically placing military personnel in key positions before the declaration.
According to their closing arguments the plans, documented in notebooks and mobile phone memos, included preparing to torture election officials into confessing to fabricated election fraud, and cutting power and water to critical media outlets.
“If just one [cabinet member] had informed the outside world … the implementation of martial law would have been realistically impossible,” prosecutors said, condemning senior officials who “chose loyalty to Yoon and greed for power-sharing”, threatening people’s lives and freedom.
They cited Yoon’s complete lack of remorse as a key aggravating factor, noting he has never properly apologised and instead blames the then-opposition while inciting supporters. Some of those supporters stormed a courthouse in violent protests following his arrest.
Yoon, a former prosecutor general, was fully aware the declaration was unconstitutional, they said.
In a statement, the presidential office said the judiciary would deliver a verdict in accordance with laws and principles, and in line with the public’s expectations.
The case marks the first insurrection-related charges against a former president since the 1996 trial of military dictators Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo for their roles in the 1979 coup and subsequent massacre in Gwangju.
Prosecutors then demanded death for Chun and life imprisonment for Roh. Both were convicted, though their sentences were later reduced and they were ultimately pardoned.
South Korea has not executed anyone since 1997 and is classified as a “de facto abolitionist” state by human rights groups.
Yoon was first arrested in January 2025, making him the first sitting Korean president to be taken into custody. He was briefly released in March after a court cancelled his detention, but was re-arrested in July and has been held since.
The insurrection case represents just one piece of an unprecedented legal onslaught.
Three concurrent special prosecutor probes into Yoon, his wife, and the alleged cover-up of a marine’s death have indicted more than 120 people across the political and military establishment.
Yoon faces eight separate criminal trials spanning charges from abuse of power to election law violations.
Beyond the insurrection charge, he is accused of ordering drone infiltrations into Pyongyang airspace in late 2024 to provoke North Korea and create a pretext for martial law.
His wife, Kim Keon Hee, faces her own reckoning on 28 January, when another Seoul court will rule on stock manipulation and bribery charges carrying a prosecutorial demand of 15 years imprisonment.
Yoon’s first verdict arrives on 16 January in his arrest obstruction case, where prosecutors have demanded 10 years imprisonment.
