From our correspondent
NEW DELHI – In a decision that leaves little doubt as to the climate of reckoning in the country, a Seoul court yesterday sentenced former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to 23 years in prison for his role in the sensational failed self-coup staged by former President Yoon Suk Yeol in December 2023. The prosecution had asked for 15.
According to Magistrate Lee Jin-kwan, despite the fact that his role as premier gave him specific responsibilities, 76-year-old Han was guilty of taking part in an insurrection, creating the conditions for ‘the population to return to living under a dictatorship for a long time’. Because of the choices Han made, the magistrate said, ‘South Korea ran the risk of returning to a dark past in which the liberal-democratic order and people’s basic rights were violated’.
Han was found guilty of the serious crime of insurrection, perjury – the only charge for which he had admitted responsibility – and falsifying an official document. In reading the sentence, the judge said Han played a key role in making it appear that the decision to impose martial law was made in the Council of Ministers and likened the plan to ‘an insurrection from above’. Not only that. Han was also found guilty of discussing with other leading government figures measures to prevent the functioning of institutions crucial to the country’s democratic life such as parliament. It was precisely the failure of this last part of the subversive plan that led to the failure of the coup.
On the night of 3 December 2023, immediately after the televised announcement of the imposition of martial law and despite the military in the streets, a handful of parliamentarians managed to reach the parliament area, climb over the fences and gather to vote down President Yoon’s attempted coup d’état, averting a return to a not-so-distant past of military regimes and repression of dissent and civil liberties.