An appeals court will rule on former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae, who received a heavy prison term at his first trial on charges of taking part in the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration.
The Seoul High Court's Criminal Division 1, presided over by Senior Judge Yoon Sung-sik, will deliver the appeals verdict on charges including playing a key role in an insurrection at 3 p.m. on the 21st, according to legal circles.
Park was indicted on charges that he failed to block former President Yoon Suk-yeol's declaration of emergency martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, and instead mobilized Justice Ministry units — including the Prosecution Bureau, the Correction Bureau and the Korea Immigration Service — to support the joint investigation headquarters under the martial law command. He also faces charges of instructing the head of the Korea Immigration Service to put a travel-ban team on standby and the head of the Correction Bureau to secure detention space.
The first-trial court convicted Park of playing a key role in an insurrection and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. That exceeded the 20-year term sought by special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team.
At the final appeals hearing last month, the special counsel asked the court to uphold the first-trial sentence. The special counsel said Park, as the justice minister overseeing legal administration, handed the state's power to punish over to insurrection forces as a tool and actively joined what it called a self-coup.
Park's side countered that the first-trial court convicted him based solely on subjective conviction, in the absence of objective evidence such as records of calls related to the alleged instructions. In his final statement, Park pleaded innocence, saying, "I could not help being shocked when I read the first-trial ruling. This is judicial murder," and adding, "I never received any instructions from former President Yoon, nor did I ever think of disrupting the constitutional order."
Separately, an appeals ruling is also due for senior security officials from the Moon Jae-in administration who were indicted over the alleged forced repatriation of North Korean fishermen.
The Seoul High Court's Criminal Division 15-3, presided over by High Court Judge Sung Eon-ju, will deliver the appeals verdict at 2 p.m. on the 21st for former National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong, former National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon, former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min and former Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who were indicted on charges including violating the National Intelligence Service Act. At the final hearing in June, the Public Prosecution Office, formerly the prosecution service, sought five years in prison each for Chung and Suh. It sought four years for Noh and three years for Kim, the same terms it requested at the first trial. Former President Moon Jae-in is said to have submitted a written opinion to the court after the final appeals hearing, arguing that the defendants in the case should be acquitted.
The case concerns two North Korean fishermen, suspected of killing 16 fellow crew members, who were forcibly expelled to North Korea by the government in November 2019 despite expressing a desire to defect to the South. Chung and the others were indicted on charges of abusing their authority in the process of sending the fishermen back to North Korea. They also face charges of preventing the fishermen from exercising their right to be tried under South Korean law over the alleged killings of their fellow crew members.
In February last year, the first-trial court found them guilty of abuse of authority in the forced repatriation. But the court suspended the pronouncement of sentence (a lighter measure than a suspended prison term), finding that the defendants had failed to make reasonable judgments in an unusual situation given their posts at the time. The intent was to acknowledge the illegality of their conduct while avoiding excessive penalties.
The court suspended the pronouncement of 10-month prison sentences for Chung and Suh, and six-month sentences for Noh and Kim.