Ex-minister in S Korea jailed for martial law fiasco role

SEOUL

A Seoul court sentenced a former defense minister on June 19 to three years in prison on charges related to ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief but catastrophic declaration of martial law in 2024, an official said.

Ex-minister Kim Yong-hyun was charged with revealing classified military information to a civilian for the purposes of creating a special team to investigate unverified election fraud claims by Yoon.

The ex-president cited electoral wrongdoing as one reason for his December 2024 martial law declaration, which lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session.

Yoon has since been convicted of leading an insurrection and is in detention while appealing a life sentence.

Kim, for his part, was accused of wrongfully revealing the identities of intelligence officers who were to be part of a special team to investigate Yoon’s vote cheating
allegations.

Prosecutors had asked for a five-year prison term, but a panel of judges sentenced him to three years behind
bars, a spokesman for the Seoul Central District told AFP on June 19.

The judges said Kim’s offense “was one of the driving forces that made the declaration of martial law possible despite the absence of any substantive legal grounds.”

Earlier this year, Kim was sentenced to 30 years in prison in a separate case related to the martial law declaration.