Yoon Suk Yeol Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison

The former president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been handed a seven‑year prison term by an appeals court. The judge found that Yoon resisted arrest and avoided a required cabinet meeting before he declared martial law in December 2024. Yoon had already been given a life sentence for leading what many call an authoritarian rebellion that shook the country’s democracy. The new conviction adds charges of obstructing justice and other offenses to his record. During the trial, the judge explained that Yoon skipped a full cabinet session that was legally required. He then tried to hide this by forging documents. In the weeks after his impeachment, Yoon also ordered security staff to act like a private army. They blocked police from arresting him.Yoon did not speak when the court announced the verdict. He and his legal team plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. Earlier in January, a lower court had sent Yoon to prison for five years but cleared him of some abuse‑of‑power claims. That decision was overturned by the higher court, which found him guilty on all counts. Yoon’s brief martial law order in December caused a major political crisis. It halted government work and rattled the stock market. The situation calmed only after a new president was elected in June. The appeals court also increased the sentence for Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, to four years. She faces charges of accepting gifts from a church that sought political favors and of being involved in a stock‑price scheme.