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SEOUL, December 26 (AJP) -A special counsel team on Friday asked a Seoul court to sentence former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 10 years in prison on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power related to his short-lived martial-law declaration in December last year.

It is the first request for sentencing on the disgraced president whose term was cut short in the wake of his Dec. 3 martial-law stunt.

During the final hearing of Yoon’s obstruction-of-justice trial at the Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 35, the prosecution team argued the former president had abused state power to block investigators, infringed on Cabinet members’ constitutional rights and attempted to conceal evidence after the lifting of martial law.

The special counsel team, led by Cho Eun-suk, sought five years in prison for allegedly obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant; three years for infringing on Cabinet members’ deliberation and voting rights, spreading false information to foreign journalists and destroying evidence linked to a secure phone; and two years for drafting a martial law proclamation after the decree had already been lifted.

“This case involves a serious crime in which state institutions were effectively privatized to conceal and justify unlawful acts,” Assistant Special Counsel Park Eok-su said during closing arguments.

He added that Yoon showed no remorse and instead attempted to justify his conduct, even describing efforts to detain him as “childish." Prosecutors argued that South Korea, as a democratic republic, operates on the principle that all power derives from the people, and that Yoon violated constitutional checks on presidential authority.

They said his actions damaged the country’s legal order and betrayed voters who elected him, stressing the need for a heavy sentence to prevent the recurrence of abuses of power by future leaders. On the charge of obstructing arrest, the team emphasized that it was unprecedented for a president to allegedly mobilize Presidential Security Service personnel as “private soldiers” to block the execution of a warrant.

The requested five-year sentence exceeds the standard sentencing guideline of one to four years for such offenses.

The court has said it is likely to deliver a verdict on Jan. 16, two days before Yoon’s detention period expires. His lawyers had requested that sentencing be postponed until the conclusion of his separate insurrection trial.

The article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
Kwon Kyu-hong 기자 spikekwon@ajunews.com

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