Yoon Suk Yeol has been accused of attempting to enact a coup when it declared martial law in December 2024.
The trial of exiled South Korean leader Yoon Sook Yeol began on April 14th, and the former president was accused of leading the rebellion.
His defense argued in late 2024 that his brief declaration of martial law was “not a coup.”
An attempt at martial law, which lasted about six hours on December 3, 2024, forced South Korea into months of political turmoil and freed the president to the Constitutional Court this month before Yoon retreated in the face of Congressional opposition and public protests.
Denied all charges against him, Yoon walked to a Seoul courtroom covered in a dark navy suit and red tie after leaving his home on April 14, where he denied all charges against him.
The prosecutors who launched the lawsuit presented their case by claiming that there was no legal basis for declaring martial law and accusing them of trying to paralyze national institutions, including Congress.
“The defendants have made it impossible for the constitutional system to exercise its powers based on illegal declarations,” the prosecutors said.
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Yoon, the South Korean chief prosecutor before becoming president in 2022, rebutted the allegation that lasted about 40 minutes in the morning.
“Building up a rebellion case based on accusations that looked like a print-like case of an incident that only lasted for a few hours is against legal principles, and it was quickly lifted in a non-violent way, when it accepted the Parliament’s request to lift it.
“March Law is not a coup.”
Yoon said he had no intention of paralyzing the country.
He said the introduction of martial law is necessary to make the public aware of how the majority opposition parties are smearing the government by engaging more than 20 officials, including a committee of the audit committee, which Yoon said was a risk-threshold event.
“This was a peaceful “martial law” for the nation. …I knew this martial law would end in half a day,” he said.
Yoon had communicated this intent to then defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, but said that military officials who carried out the orders apparently had been trampled down because they were used to martial law training under various guidelines.
It is expected that the two senior officers will take the position of witnesses in the afternoon.
One, Jung Sang Hyun from the Army’s Capital Defense Command testified in February at the Constitutional Court that he was ordered by the parliament to send troops to “drug” from the parliament during martial law.
The declaration of martial law, citing the need to eradicate the “anti-state” element, was lifted six hours after Congressional staff tried to enter Congress using barricades and fire extinguishers.
South Korea has not enforced since 1997, but charges of rebellion are punished by life’s imprisonment or death.
Conservative Yoon returned to his private home from his official home on April 11th, and it was revealed that many supporters would greet his car.
He vowed to “wait” his supporters, but opposition Democrats accused him of not apologizing.
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is currently leading the polls, but Hong Joon-Pyo, a former prosecutor who died in Yoon’s Conservative primary in the previous presidential election, has announced that he will play his role again.
