South Korea’s President Yoon in court for preliminary ‘rebellion’ hearing
Al Jazeera2 days
South Korea's Yoon Attends First Hearing of Criminal Trial for Insurrection
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Above: South Korea's impeached Pres. Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing for his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Feb. 4, 2025. Image copyright: Lee Young-ho/Sipa/Bloomberg/Contributor via Getty Images
The Facts
South Korea's impeached Pres. Yoon Suk Yeol appeared at the Seoul Central District Court for the first preliminary hearing of his criminal trial over insurrection charges on Thursday. He is the country's first-ever sitting president to go on trial for criminal charges, though not the first to be criminally charged.
The hearing began at 10 am and lasted just 13 minutes as Yoon's lawyers requested more time to review records of charges and evidence submitted by the prosecution. The court is now set to hold a second preparatory hearing on March 24 to organize witnesses, evidence, and other issues.
Yoon was arrested on Jan. 15 and indicted on Jan. 26 on charges of insurrection related to his martial law declaration, with the prosecution and defense lawyers at odds over whether his arrest expired before the indictment. If convicted, Yoon faces potential life imprisonment or the death penalty.
The Spin
Narrative A
If his claims were true, Yoon would have sought numerous alternatives to declaring martial law. There's plenty of evidence that he sought to subvert the constitutional order, destroy civil liberties, and instigate an insurrection — all in an attempt to escape criminal accountability for himself and his wife, or perhaps even to guarantee that he and his cronies would remain in power.
Narrative B
South Korea's constitutional order is at risk, and Yoon isn't the one to blame for that. Courts may indeed decide that he committed an impeachable offense and even that his martial law declaration amounts to an act of insurrection, but the nation has come to realize that the leftist opposition is the one running a lawfare coup.
