The Supreme Court will deliver its ruling on former President Yoon Suk-yeol's case involving the obstruction of an arrest warrant execution by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO).
According to the legal community Thursday, the Supreme Court's Third Division, with Justice Lee Suk-yeon presiding, will hold the sentencing hearing at 2 p.m. for Yoon, who was indicted on charges including special obstruction of official duty. The ruling will be broadcast live. This marks the first time the Supreme Court has broadcast live a ruling by a small panel rather than an en banc case. However, defendants are not required to attend Supreme Court appeal hearings. Yoon is expected not to appear at the Supreme Court and instead attend his appellate trial on insurrection ringleader charges, which takes place at the same time.
Yoon was indicted on charges including obstructing the CIO's execution of an arrest warrant through the Presidential Security Service following the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration. The first trial found him guilty of infringing cabinet members' deliberation rights at the Cabinet meeting, drafting and discarding an after-the-fact martial law declaration document, ordering the removal and deletion of secure phones, and blocking the CIO's execution of the arrest warrant, sentencing him to five years in prison. The appellate court overturned the first trial's acquittal on charges including making false public statements to foreign media, finding him guilty and raising the sentence to seven years in prison. However, both the first and second trials acquitted him of the charge of using falsified official documents.
This ruling marks the Supreme Court's first judgment on a case involving Yoon, coming 583 days after the emergency martial law declaration. In addition to the CIO arrest warrant obstruction case, Yoon is standing first-instance or appellate trials in cases including: insurrection ringleader charges; alleged deployment of drones to Pyongyang; external pressure on the investigation into a Marine's death in the line of duty; former Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup's flight to Australia; receiving free opinion polls from Myung Tae-kyun; publishing false statements related to the shaman known as Geonjin Beopsa; and perjury in the trial of former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.
Meanwhile, the first-trial verdict for the Presidential Security Service leadership, separately indicted on charges of obstructing the warrant execution alongside Yoon, will also be delivered the same day. The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 26, with Presiding Judge Lee Hyun-kyung, will hold the first-trial sentencing hearing at 2 p.m. for former Presidential Security Service chief Park Jong-hoon and others indicted on charges including special obstruction of official duty. At last month's final hearing, the special counsel sought seven years in prison each for Park and former Presidential Security Service deputy chief Kim Seong-hoon. The special counsel sought five years in prison for Lee Kwang-woo, former head of the security bureau, and three years for Kim Shin, former head of the family protection division.
