SEOUL, January 13. /TASS/. A special prosecutor’s team has recommended that a court sentence former South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun to life imprisonment for trying to lead a mutiny in the country, Yonhap reported.
South Korea’s Criminal Code provides for several types of punishment for trying to promote a coup, including the death penalty, life imprisonment, or a prison term of no less than five years. Former President Yoon Suk-yeol is regarded as the ringleader of the overthrow attempt, and the prosecution has requested the death penalty for him. According to media reports, Kim Yong-hyun was a major player in the operation, coordinating military actions on December 3-4.
Prosecutors are also seeking a 30-year prison sentence for another key figure in those events, former South Korean military intelligence chief Roh Sang-won, who is believed to be one of the authors of the plan to impose martial law. Notes found in his notebook led investigators to believe that he may have been involved in developing a plan to provoke North Korea in order to justify the introduction of martial law.
In April 2025, the Constitutional Court ruled that the martial law imposed on December 3-4, 2024, violated the country’s basic law. The prosecution believes that Yoon Suk-yeol sought to use it to suppress his political opponents.
On Monday, prosecutors requested a 15-year prison sentence for former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min in the mutiny case. In November, they sought the same sentence for former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is accused of aiding the leader of the rebels, Yoon Suk-yeol, and of perjury related to plans to impose martial law. Han Duck-soo allegedly took part in a cabinet meeting that discussed the measure and, according to investigators, signed a rewritten declaration on the imposition of martial law intended to make it appear more legitimate, later destroying the document and lying about it under oath.