Supreme Court Confirms 1.5-Year Prison Term for Former Presidential Secretary Kang Gyu-gu Over "Retroactive Martial Law Proclamation"

A prison sentence of 1 year and 6 months has been finalized for former Presidential Secretary Kang Gyu-gu, who was indicted on charges of drafting a "retroactive martial law proclamation" following the lifting of the December 3 emergency martial law.

The Supreme Court's Division 1 (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yup) finalized the lower court's ruling sentencing the former secretary to 1 year and 6 months in prison on charges including the creation of false official documents and violations of the Presidential Records Act.

Former Secretary Kang was indicted without detention in December of last year by the independent counsel team led by Cho Eun-seok on charges of creating a false official document. Specifically, he was accused of belatedly drafting a cover page for the martial law proclamation on December 6, 2024—after the martial law was lifted—and obtaining the countersignatures (signatures) of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, and former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun.

The independent counsel team concluded that the false martial law proclamation cover page was created to make it appear as though former President Yoon's declaration of emergency martial law had been lawfully carried out based on a document countersigned in advance.

He also faced charges of violating the Presidential Records Management Act and damaging public documents for allegedly destroying the proclamation without authorization after hearing former Prime Minister Han say, "It could become a problem if it becomes known that a retroactive document was created."

The first instance court found these charges guilty and sentenced him to 1 year and 6 months in prison in May.

However, the court did not accept the charge that the false proclamation was drafted with the intent to make it look as though the emergency martial law had undergone deliberation by the State Council.

This was because the proclamation did not directly contain contents related to that.

The charge of uttering the false proclamation (uttering falsified official documents) was also ruled not guilty.

The court reasoned that because former Secretary Kang merely kept the document in his office drawer, he did not undermine public trust in the document.

The first instance court rebuked him, stating, "Although the defendant was a senior public official assisting the president closely, upon recognizing the flaw that the emergency martial law was not implemented through a document containing the president's signature and State Council members' countersignatures, he newly created a cover page that was not in the originally distributed proclamation to conceal it, making his culpability heavy."

Both sides appealed, but following the second instance court, the Supreme Court also found no errors in this judgment and dismissed the appeal.

The Supreme Court likewise concluded that the false proclamation not only gave the false impression that countersignatures existed prior to the declaration of emergency martial law when they did not, but also established the defendant's criminal intent regarding the creation of false official documents.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.