SEOUL \u2013 A South Korean court handed jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol an 18-month suspended sentence on Monday for spreading disinformation in his 2022 election campaign before his martial law bid.<\/p>\n
The Seoul Central District Court ruling could see South Korea\u2019s main opposition People Power Party (PPP), which Yoon represented, forced to pay 39.7 billion won ($29 million) to the election commission if it is upheld on appeal.<\/p>\n
It could also see Yoon\u2019s 2022 electoral win nullified, a largely symbolic blow for the disgraced ex-leader who is already serving a life sentence for insurrection.<\/p>\n
Yoon declared martial law in December 2024, ordering troops to shut parliament, before MPs rallied to vote it down after just six hours and oust him.<\/p>\n
The 65-year-old and his close cohorts have since been prosecuted in a hail of criminal cases.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s sentence, suspended for three years, was handed down by judges who found Yoon guilty of twin violations of polling legislation by making false statements on the 2022 election trail.<\/p>\n
Yoon won the vote with a margin of just 0.7%.<\/p>\n
However, the court found he had been dishonest about his ties to a shaman and lied during an interview at a Buddhist conference to cover up a 2019 meeting with the mystic in a bid to skirt controversy.<\/p>\n
Yoon wore a neutral expression as judges also ruled he had lied about introducing a lawyer to a tax official who was investigated for alleged bribery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant, a leading candidate in the presidential election \u2014 a procedure for selecting the nation\u2019s highest public official \u2014 publicized false information regarding his specific actions to his advantage,\u201d said the ruling, read aloud on a livestream.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are sufficient grounds to determine that the voters\u2019 ability to make informed decisions \u2014 a value the offense of disseminating false information seeks to protect \u2014 was compromised by these incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yoon\u2019s legal team said in a statement there were \u201csignificant errors\u201d in the judgment and said they would lodge an appeal.<\/p>\n
Under South Korean law, the election commission reimburses parties for all their campaigning costs if they win more than 15% of the vote \u2014 legislation designed to limit the influence of money in politics.<\/p>\n
Candidates sentenced to prison for election offenses \u2014 including airing false information \u2014 are mandated to be removed from office, with their campaign funds returned to the National Election Commission.<\/p>\n
The PPP spent 39.7 billion won contesting 2022\u2019s presidential election, a spokeswoman said, and expects to be forced to pay back the cash if the ruling is upheld.<\/p>\n
That amount would total roughly one-third of the beleaguered party\u2019s assets, according to election commission filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL \u2013 A South Korean court handed jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol an 18-month suspended sentence on Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,44340,33,32],"class_list":["post-100982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-korea","tag-misinformation","tag-south-korea","tag-yoon-suk-yeol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}