South Korean Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-suk on Thursday demanded the death penalty for former president Yeon Suk-yeol, who touched off a national crisis by declaring martial law in December 2024.
Yoon, 65, declared a state of martial law in South Korea on December 3, 2024. He said this was necessary to “protect the Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces” that had allegedly subverted and paralyzed South Korea’s government.
Yoon denounced the opposition in the South Korean National Assembly as a “hotbed of criminals,” and said martial law would remain in effect until he could “eradicate such anti-state forces and the culprits of the country’s ruin who have committed evil acts up until now.”
As it turned out, the state of martial law only lasted about six hours, until lawmakers were able to slip past a cordon of soldiers, establish a quorum in the National Assembly, and voted to nullify Yoon’s decree. Yoon was impeached ten days later, removed from office in April 2025 after a lengthy legal and political battle, and sentenced to life in prison for “leading an insurrection” in February 2026.
Yoon filed an appeal against his life sentence, which is now pending before the Seoul High Court. Cho responded on Thursday by arguing that Yoon can only be held fully “accountable” for “orchestrating a rebellion” by giving him the death penalty.
The special prosecution team pushed for capital punishment at Yoon’s first trial and still believe there is “no reason to hesitate to impose the death penalty,” in part because they believe there is enough evidence to prove that Yoon carefully planned his martial law insurrection.
Prosecutors also argued that Yoon deserved no leniency from the appeals court for “restrained” behavior during his “self-coup” because he was prepared to use extreme force against those who tried to stop him, but some police and military officials disobeyed his orders.
Yoon’s attorneys argued that the former president was merely trying to “raise awareness” of corruption and sedition among his political opponents by declaring martial law and had no intention of setting himself up as an authoritarian ruler. South Koreans lived under military dictatorships from the 1960s through the 1980s and they do not have fond memories of the experience, so the charges against Yoon touched a nerve with the public.
The odds of Yoon actually being executed seem fairly low. The death penalty is still on the books in South Korea, but its last executions were carried out in 1997.
Yoon has also appealed a 30-year sentence handed down in June for ordering a drone incursion of North Korea in October 2024, allegedly to heighten tensions on the peninsula and set the stage for his martial law declaration. Yoon’s lawyers said he did not personally order the drone operation and it was a reasonable response to North Korea sending balloons loaded with garbage across the border.