Seoul: A Seoul district court Monday sentenced South Korea’s former President Yoon Suk Yeol to two years in prison after finding him partially guilty of accepting illegal political funds in the form of free opinion polls from a self-proclaimed power broker.
The Seoul Central District Court convicted the jailed former president on charges of violating the Political Funds Act in a ruling that marked a departure from a separate trial where his wife was acquitted on the same charges.
Special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team earlier indicted Yoon on charges of colluding with his wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, and receiving 58 opinion polls worth about 270 million won (USD 180,100) in total for free from the power broker, Myung Tae-kyun, between April 2021 and March 2022, Yonhap news agency reported.
In its ruling, the court recognised that Yoon had received 14 opinion polls from Myung for free over the period, sentencing him to prison and ordering a forfeiture of 13.96 million won.
It recognised the special counsel team’s argument that Yoon had promised to support former Rep. Kim Young-sun’s nomination as a candidate for the conservative People Power Party in the parliamentary by-elections in June 2022 in exchange for the opinion polls.
“The defendant’s actions sowed distrust in politics and undermined the public trust in the development of democracy,” the court said. “A punishment commensurate with the wrongdoing is inevitable.”
The court also sentenced Myung to 18 months in prison on the charges.
The special counsel team had sought a four-year prison sentence for Yoon and a three-year term for Myung.
The ruling diverged from an appellate court’s acquittal of Yoon’s wife on charges of accepting free opinion polls from Myung in a separate trial.
In Kim’s acquittal in April, the Seoul High Court ruled the couple could not be seen as profiting off the opinion polls, as Myung had provided them to other people as well. Min’s team has appealed that ruling.
After the ruling, Yoon’s lawyers vowed to appeal, saying the verdict was “difficult to understand” given the former first lady’s acquittal in her trial.
The special counsel team called the latest ruling “very meaningful,” noting the bench appeared to have closely considered the various evidence and arguments presented in its judgment.
It marked the latest conviction for Yoon, who has been standing multiple trials following his failed 2024 martial law bid. In February, Yoon was sentenced to life imprisonment for leading an insurrection through his short-lived imposition of martial law.
