SEOUL — South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a seven-year prison sentence for former president Yoon Suk Yeol on charges of obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant, delivering the first top-court ruling in any of the criminal cases arising from his short-lived December 2024 declaration of emergency martial law.
The Third Division of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Lee Sook-yeon, dismissed appeals filed by both Yoon and the special counsel and left the sentence handed down by the Seoul High Court in April unchanged. The court held its ruling hearing on Thursday afternoon at the Supreme Court’s Courtroom No. 1.
“The arguments for appeal largely challenge the lower court’s findings of fact, and there was no error in the lower court’s judgment, including a violation of the rules of logic and experience, an overstep of the bounds of the free evaluation of evidence, or a misunderstanding of legal principles on the establishment of a crime,” the court said in its ruling.
Yoon did not attend Thursday’s hearing, as defendants are not required to be present for Supreme Court appeal rulings under South Korean procedure. At the time the sentence was finalized, he was attending an appellate hearing at the Seoul High Court in a separate case involving allegations that he acted as the ringleader of an insurrection, which prosecutors have described as the core case tied to the 2024 martial law declaration. According to his legal team, Yoon watched the Supreme Court ruling in real time on a lawyer’s mobile phone from the high court building.
In a statement issued shortly after the ruling, Yoon’s legal representatives said, “We respect the Supreme Court’s decision, but we express deep regret.” They said they were considering constitutional avenues to challenge the outcome.
The case centers on events that took place in January 2025, when investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, the anti-corruption body known as the CIO, attempted to execute an arrest warrant against Yoon at the presidential residence in Seoul. According to court findings, officers were prevented from carrying out the arrest by barricades and other measures put in place by staff of the Presidential Security Service acting on Yoon’s instructions. Prosecutors argued that the obstruction was accompanied by abuse of official authority.
A key legal question in the case was whether the CIO had the authority to investigate allegations related to insurrection, which do not fall directly within its remit. Both lower courts and the Supreme Court concluded that the agency could pursue the matter because the allegations had surfaced in the course of its investigation into abuse of power, giving it a lawful basis to seek Yoon’s arrest.
The Seoul Central District Court had convicted Yoon of most charges in January this year and imposed a five-year prison term. In April, the Seoul High Court raised the sentence to seven years after finding him guilty of additional charges, including abuse of power connected with statements made to foreign media outlets during the martial law episode, and violation of the deliberation rights of additional cabinet members. The special counsel team, led by Cho Eun-suk, had sought a combined ten-year sentence.
Thursday’s ruling also marks the first time since South Korea’s democratization that a fifth former president has received a final guilty verdict from the country’s top court. The previous four were Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.
Two former Presidential Security Service officials were also sentenced on Thursday in separate lower-court proceedings tied to the same arrest-obstruction case. Park Jong-jun, the former head of the service, received a four-year prison term, and Kim Seong-hun, the former deputy head, received a five-year term. Both were taken into custody in court.
Yoon faces a number of additional criminal proceedings, including the ongoing insurrection case, which is currently before the Seoul High Court on appeal after a lower-court ruling earlier this year. Legal analysts have noted that Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on the CIO’s investigative authority could carry implications for how similar procedural questions are addressed in his remaining trials.
