Prime minister under S. Korea’s conservative Yoon administration sentenced to 23 years

by WorldTribune Staff, January 21, 2026 Real World News

Han Duck-Soo, who served as prime minister during conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s Administration, was sentenced on Wednesday to 23 years in prison on rebellion charges. Many others in the Yoon Administration are facing prosecution.

Han Duck-Soo

Han, age 76, is the first official from the Yoon administration to be convicted of rebellion over the imposition of martial law in December 2024, The Associated Press reported. Yoon and his other associates also face rebellion charges in what critics say is an effort by current leftist President Lee Jae-Myung to punish his political foes.

Lee was elected president in June 2025 after a court upheld the National Assembly’s impeachment of Yoon. The National Assembly which ousted Yoon is dominated by Lee’s Democratic Party of Korea after an election which Yoon sought unsuccessfully to investigate.

Han was appointed by Yoon, and was one of the three caretaker leaders during the martial law declaration which was precipitated by the conservative president’s election fraud investigation.

The Seoul court, in a televised verdict, determined Yoon’s martial law decree amounted to a rebellion, finding that his dispatch of troops and police officers to the National Assembly and election offices was “a riot” or “a self-coup” meant to undermine the constitutional order.

The court sentenced Han for what it said was his key role in the rebellion, as he tried giving procedural legitimacy to the martial law decree by getting it passed through a Cabinet Council meeting. Han was also convicted of falsifying the martial law proclamation, destroying it, and lying under oath.

Han could appeal the ruling, and he has maintained that he told Yoon that he opposed his martial law plan. He has also denied the other charges.

The court found that Han neglected his responsibilities as prime minister, which is the second-highest position in South Korea, to protect the constitution, and instead chose to take part in Yoon’s rebellion in the belief that it might succeed.

“Because of the defendant’s action, the Republic of Korea could have returned to a dark past when the basic rights of the people and the liberal democratic order were trampled upon, becoming trapped in the quagmire of dictatorships for an extended period,” Judge Lee Jin-Gwan said.

Han became acting president after Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly, controlled by the opposition party, in December 2024. Han was also impeached after battling with opposition lawmakers over his refusal to fill vacant seats on the Constitutional Court, which was deciding whether to formally throw Yoon out of office.

The Constitutional Court later reinstated Han as acting president, but he resigned after the court formally dismissed Yoon as president in early April, and ran for the presidency in last June’s snap election. Han eventually withdrew from the race after failing to win the main conservative party’s nomination.

The leftist Lee won the election.

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