(Adnkronos) – Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is already serving a life sentence for insurrection, has been sentenced to 18 months, with a suspended sentence, for spreading disinformation during his 2022 election campaign prior to his attempt to impose martial law in the country. If the Seoul Central District Court’s ruling is upheld on appeal, the People Power Party (PPP), the main opposition party Yoon led, could have to pay 39.7 billion won (about 23.7 million euros) to the election commission. This would also include the annulment of Yoon’s 2022 election victory, a largely symbolic blow for the disgraced former leader.
Yoon declared martial law in December 2024, ordering troops to close Parliament, before lawmakers reconvened to vote against him after just six hours and impeached him. Since then, the 65-year-old and his closest associates have been prosecuted in a long series of criminal cases. Today’s sentence, suspended for three years, was handed down by judges who found Yoon guilty of double violations of electoral legislation for making false statements during the 2022 election campaign, which Yoon won by a narrow margin of 0.7%. According to the court, the former leader had been dishonest about his ties to a shaman and had lied during an interview at a Buddhist conference to conceal a 2019 meeting with the mystic in an attempt to avoid controversy, and also lied about introducing a lawyer to a tax official under investigation for alleged corruption.
“The defendant, a prominent candidate in the presidential election, a procedure for selecting the nation’s highest public official, publicized false information regarding his specific actions to his advantage,” the ruling states, read aloud in a live stream. “There are sufficient grounds to determine that voters’ ability to make informed decisions, a value that the offense of spreading false information seeks to protect, was compromised by these incidents.” Yoon’s lawyers responded in a statement to AFP that there are “significant errors” in the ruling and that they would appeal. Under South Korean law, the election commission reimburses parties for all campaign costs if they obtain more than 15% of the votes, legislation designed to limit the influence of money in politics. Candidates sentenced to prison for electoral offenses, including spreading false information, are required to be removed from office, and their campaign funds must be returned to the National Election Commission. The PPP spent 39.7 billion won on the 2022 presidential election, a spokeswoman told AFP, and expects to be forced to repay the money if the ruling is upheld. This amount would be about one-third of the struggling party’s assets, according to election commission documents.
