The court proceedings established that Han Duck-soo facilitated Yoon's attempt to impose martial law and disrupted the order of the cabinet meeting to approve the decree. This sentence was eight years harsher than what the prosecutors had requested.
Han became the first member of Yoon's cabinet to be convicted for attempting to establish martial law in 2024, followed by former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min, who was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Yoon Suk-yeol is not the first South Korean leader whose political career ended in scandal. There is a list of previous presidents whose fates turned tragic.
- The first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, was forced to resign after bloody protests triggered by his re-election in 1960. He fled to Hawaii, where he died in 1965.
- The military dictator Park Chung-hee overthrew his predecessor Lee Jin-man in 1961 and became president. His rule became increasingly authoritarian, and he was killed by his own intelligence chief.
- Dictator Chun Doo-hwan came to power in 1980 after a coup, but in 1996 was convicted of corruption, coup, and the Gwangju massacre, after which he was pardoned two years into his prison sentence.
- Human rights activist Roh Moo-hyun won the 2002 elections, but after leaving office faced corruption charges and took his own life.
- Former Hyundai chief Lee Myung-bak won the 2007 elections, and his successor, Park Chung-hee's daughter, Park Geun-hye, was later impeached and convicted of corruption. Lee was also found guilty of bribery, and both received prison sentences but were ultimately pardoned.
