South Korean prosecutors have charged ousted President Yoon Suk-yul over a short-lived martial law decree, making him the country’s first leader to face criminal charges while in office.
Yoon faces charges of leading a rebellion after he declared martial law on December 3 and sent troops to the national parliament. The order was withdrawn six hours later after opposition representatives voted to reject it.
Impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol attends a hearing in his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court on January 21 in Seoul.credit: Getty Images
This move shocked the country and plunged it into the worst political crisis in decades. This was the first time South Korea was under military rule since it transitioned to democracy in the late 1980s.
His indictment begins a trial process, and if convicted, he faces the possibility of life imprisonment or even the death penalty, even though South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.
Yoon has been detained since January 15, when hundreds of police stormed the presidential residence where he had been holed up for weeks, while rejecting the authorities’ requests to face questioning over the incident.
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As the arrest warrant neared expiration, prosecutors faced the choice of formally charging him or releasing him after the court twice rejected requests to extend his detention over the weekend. A number of senior military officials have also been charged for their role in the alleged mutiny.
The saga revealed deep divisions within Korean society. Thousands of anti-Leon protesters took to the streets to demand the president’s removal from office, while Leone’s conservative base also came out in the thousands to defend the embattled leader.
Yoon, a former prosecutor himself, and his legal team maintained that his detention was illegal, and argued that the use of martial law by the president could not constitute treason. However, many experts view his decree as unconstitutional.
