{"id":50000,"date":"2026-06-22T12:40:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=50000"},"modified":"2026-06-22T12:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:55:50","slug":"south-korea-ex-minister-gets-25-years-for-role-in-martial-law-disaster-yonhap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/south-korea-ex-minister-gets-25-years-for-role-in-martial-law-disaster-yonhap\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea ex-minister gets 25 years for role in martial law disaster: Yonhap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

He has since been convicted of leading an insurrection, and is in detention while appealing a life sentence.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

They said he had shown no remorse.<\/p>\n

Yoon’s shock late-night national televised address plunged South Korea into an unprecedented political crisis.<\/p>\n

It triggered protests, sent the stock market plunging and caught key allies like the United States off-guard.<\/p>\n

A circle of Yoon subordinates have been given hefty sentences.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Last week, former defence minister was sentenced to three years in prison for revealing classified military information in furtherance of the insurrection.<\/p>\n

Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee is serving a four-year term for stock manipulation and bribery unrelated to the martial law fiasco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50002,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50000\/revisions\/50002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}