South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday confirmed a seven-year prison term for former president Yoon Suk Yeol, rejecting his appeal against convictions tied to the chaotic aftermath of his December 2024 martial law decree. The ruling, which cannot be appealed further, covers charges that Yoon ordered presidential security agents to physically block investigators from executing a court-issued arrest warrant in January 2025, forged the prime minister’s signature on a martial law document, and directed officials to distribute a misleading press release to foreign media. The court stated the lower court’s judgment “contained no errors”, bringing to a definitive close the first of several criminal cases against the impeached leader.

Yoon’s legal team expressed “deep regret” and accused the Supreme Court of concluding the case “without sufficient deliberation”. They announced plans to file a constitutional complaint, a move that could delay the sentence’s finality but is unlikely to overturn it, according to legal analysts in Seoul. Prosecutors, who had sought a ten-year sentence, said they respected the decision and would focus on the remaining insurrection-related proceedings. Yoon, 65, did not attend the hearing; he has been in detention since July 2025 and is already serving a separate life sentence for leading an insurrection, as well as a 30-year term for sending drones into North Korean airspace in 2024 to “manufacture” a crisis ahead of his martial law bid.

The Supreme Court’s ruling reinforces the judiciary’s position that the former president’s use of the Presidential Security Service to erect human-chain barriers and barbed wire around his residence could not be justified as legitimate protective activity. Viewed from Seoul, the decision is a milestone in the institutional response to a six-hour suspension of civilian rule that plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into political turmoil, triggered mass protests, and briefly rattled financial markets. The martial law declaration, which Yoon defended as necessary to root out “anti-state forces”, was swiftly overturned by lawmakers in an emergency session and led to his impeachment and removal from office in April 2025.

The snap presidential election that followed brought Lee Jae Myung of the centre-left Democratic Party to power, reshaping the political landscape. While the government has not commented directly on the verdict, the justice ministry has previously signalled that all legal processes would be allowed to run their course. Yoon faces at least eight separate indictments; the constitutional complaint his lawyers intend to lodge will test the boundaries of executive immunity and due process, but the Supreme Court’s final word on the obstruction case leaves the former president with diminishing legal avenues as the insurrection appeal proceeds.