Former President Yoon Suk Yeol Receives Final 7-Year Prison Sentence for Obstructing Arrest, 583 Days After Martial Law Declaration

[Anchor]

A final ruling has been delivered regarding the charges against former President Yoon Suk Yeol, including the obstruction of the execution of an arrest warrant. The original sentence of seven years in prison has been upheld. This marks the first Supreme Court judgment against the former president, 583 days after the December 3 emergency martial law declaration.

Reporter Jung Hye-jin has the story.

[Reporter]

The Supreme Court's Third Division upheld the original sentence of seven years in prison for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was charged with obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), on the afternoon of July 9.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals filed by both the former president and the special prosecutor, stating that "there were no errors in the original judgment, such as violating the principles of logic and empirical rules, exceeding the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misinterpreting legal principles."

As there is no requirement for the defendant to be present for the final appeal, the former president did not attend the Supreme Court hearing today.

Instead, he is currently attending an appellate trial at the Seoul High Court regarding charges of being the ringleader of the insurrection, which is the core of the emergency martial law case.

Former President Yoon was arrested and indicted by the special counsel team for insurrection in July of last year on charges of mobilizing Presidential Security Service staff to obstruct the execution of a CIO arrest warrant during the early stages of the martial law investigation in January of last year.

In January of this year, the first-instance court found him guilty of most charges, including obstruction of arrest and abuse of power, and sentenced him to five years in prison. In April, the second-instance court found him guilty of all charges, including the obstruction of the arrest warrant execution, and increased the sentence to seven years.

Following this, the Supreme Court also upheld the second-instance ruling today and confirmed the original sentence.

With this, the former president has received his first final prison sentence from the Supreme Court, 583 days after the declaration of emergency martial law, following the Constitutional Court's decision to impeach him.

Immediately after the Supreme Court's ruling, the former president's side stated, "We respect the Supreme Court's decision, but we express deep regret."

Meanwhile, Park Jong-jun, the former head of the Presidential Security Service, and Kim Seong-hun, the former deputy head of the Security Service, who were charged with participating in the obstruction of the arrest warrant execution, were also sentenced to four years and five years in prison, respectively, by the first-instance court today and were taken into court custody.

(Video reporting: Yang Hyun-cheol, Video editing: So Ji-hye)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.