{"id":76392,"date":"2026-02-17T09:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/17\/yoon-suk-yeol-south-korea-trial-verdict"},"modified":"2026-02-17T09:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:50:12","slug":"i-just-want-to-stop-hearing-about-it-a-weary-south-korea-awaits-verdict-on-yoon-insurrection-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76392","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I just want to stop hearing about it\u2019: a weary South Korea awaits verdict on Yoon insurrection charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yoon Suk Yeol could face the death penalty when judges rule on the martial law crisis that many in South Korea see as a dark moment they would rather forget<\/p>\n

South Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with judges due to deliver their verdict on insurrection charges against the former president Yoon Suk Yeol and prosecutors demanding the death penalty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Yoon stands in courtroom 417 of Seoul central district court on Thursday to hear his fate, which will be broadcast live, he will do so in the same room<\/a> where the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan<\/a> was sentenced to death three decades ago. The charge is formally the same. Last time, it took almost 17 years and a democratic transition to deliver a verdict. This time, it has taken 14 months. Chun\u2019s death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on appeal, and he was eventually pardoned.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yoon Suk Yeol could face the death penalty when judges rule on the martial law crisis that many in South Korea see as a dark moment they would rather forgetSouth Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with j…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2929,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,222,42,3218],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-south-korea","category-world-news","category-yoon-suk-yeol"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2929"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76393,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76392\/revisions\/76393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}