The Seoul High Court is set to deliver its verdict on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in a live-televised hearing on former President Yoon Suk Yeol's obstruction of justice and other charges. A lower court had sentenced him to five years in prison, a ruling appealed by both Yoon and special counsel Cho Eun-suk, who seeks a 10-year term.
A lower court convicted Yoon in January of obstructing investigators from detaining him last year over his late 2024 martial law declaration, sentencing him to five years in prison. The court also found him guilty of violating Cabinet members' rights by convening only select members to review his martial law plan and of creating and discarding a false proclamation after the decree was lifted. It acquitted him of abuse of power for ordering false press statements defending the declaration.
Both Yoon and special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team appealed the ruling, with prosecutors demanding a 10-year sentence.
The jailed former president faces eight trials linked to his short-lived Dec. 3, 2024, martial law imposition, plus corruption allegations involving his wife and the 2023 death of a Marine. In February, a district court sentenced him to life imprisonment for leading an insurrection.
