Senior officials of the Presidential Security Service, indicted for obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant against former President Yoon Suk-yeol by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) in January last year, were convicted in their first trial.
The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 26 (presiding judge Lee Hyun-kyung) on the 9th sentenced former Presidential Security Service Chief Park Jong-joon and former Deputy Chief Kim Seong-hoon to four years and five years in prison, respectively, on charges including obstruction of special official duties, and ordered them detained in the courtroom. The court also handed down a prison term of two years and six months to former Security Headquarters Chief Lee Kwang-woo, who was indicted on the same charges. However, former Family Protection Chief Kim Shin, who was found not guilty on some charges, received a one-year prison term suspended for two years.
The court found all the acts by the Presidential Security Service's senior officials in blocking the CIO's execution of the arrest warrant against former President Yoon in January last year to be guilty. It also found Kim, the former deputy chief, guilty of involvement in deleting information from the encrypted phones of three military commanders following Yoon's instructions.
"They systematically obstructed the investigation and judicial proceedings against former President Yoon, who was under investigation as a suspect in the insurrection crime, thereby reducing the functioning of the state's legal order to a mere shell," the court said in explaining the sentencing. "Considering the motive and outcome of the crime, including the creation of concerns over physical clashes with the officials executing the warrant, the nature of the offense is poor and the culpability is significant."
