Seoul court extends ex-minister's term in martial law case

SEOUL: South Korea's appeals court on Tuesday increased the ex-interior minister's prison sentence from seven to nine years over his role in the 2024 martial law crisis, ruling that the original term was too lenient.

The country's ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol's decree briefly suspended civilian rule and plunged South Korea into chaos, but only lasted around six hours as opposition lawmakers moved quickly to overturn it in a vote.

A lower court sentenced former interior minister Lee Sang-min in February to seven years behind bars, but he and the prosecution appealed the term to the Seoul High Court.

The appeals court said it upheld the lower court's decisions overall, but accepted prosecutors' argument that the "original sentence had been too lenient."

The justices extended Lee's penalty to nine years in prison on charges including carrying out key insurrection-related duties, perjury and abuse of power.

Lee was accused of carrying out orders from Yoon after the martial law declaration, including blocking access to key institutions such as the National Assembly and cutting electricity and water supplies to media outlets.

Prosecutors also accused Lee of instructing a former fire commissioner to cooperate with the measures.

Lee was additionally charged with perjury for testimony he gave during Yoon's impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in February last year, in which he denied receiving orders from Yoon to cut electricity and water supplies.

The appeals court said the measures taken by Lee to cut off electricity and water supply to specific media outlets "not only physically made it impossible to publish media reports critical of the state of emergency, but also posed a serious threat to the lives and physical safety of citizens working there."

His actions caused "considerable mental distress" to numerous firefighters as they became implicated in the insurrectionary acts of Yoon, the court said.

Lee was also "well aware at the time that the declaration of the martial law was unlawful," it added in a statement sent to AFP.

The court also said Lee's perjury charges could not be taken lightly because, rather than helping establish the truth during Yoon's impeachment trial, he had actively given "false testimony" to conceal his role in the martial-law related offences.