South Korean prosecutors seek death penalty for former President Yoon Suk Yeol

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean prosecutors on Friday sought the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk Yeol for his failed December 2024 martial law declaration, marking the first rebellion trial against a head of state in three decades.

Prosecutors described the move as a "grave destruction of the constitutional order" that directly threatened national security and civil liberties. A court verdict is expected on Feb. 19.

Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun also faces a recommended sentence of life in prison for his role as a primary accomplice.

The charges stem from the night of Dec. 3, 2024, when Yoon deployed troops to the National Assembly to block lawmakers from voting to lift his martial law order. Despite the military blockade, 190 legislators bypassed security lines to pass an emergency resolution, forcing Yoon to retreat.

The National Assembly subsequently impeached Yoon, and the Constitutional Court formally removed him from office in April 2025.

Prosecutors allege that Yoon began planning to seize absolute power as early as October 2023. They further stated that the former president has shown no remorse for his actions.

Yoon currently faces eight separate criminal trials involving various charges. While prosecutors requested the death penalty, South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997.

The prosecution of President Yoon Suk Yeol represents more than a localized political crisis; it is a fundamental stress test for the resilience of South Korean democracy. Beyond the immediate legal proceedings, the move underscores a corrosive domestic polarization that threatens to paralyze Seoul’s legislative and executive functions for years to come, regardless of the eventual judicial outcome.

On the geopolitical front, this internal volatility introduces a dangerous variable into an already fraught East Asian security landscape. As a linchpin of the U.S. alliance network, South Korea’s stability is essential to maintaining the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula and across the broader Indo-Pacific. Any perceived erosion in Seoul’s capacity to project a consistent foreign policy will be closely monitored—and potentially exploited—by regional rivals.

The economic tremors are being felt most acutely in Hanoi. South Korea remains Vietnam’s largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), with industrial titans such as Samsung and Hyundai forming the backbone of the country’s manufacturing and export sectors. While these conglomerates have historically demonstrated resilience in the face of domestic political cycles, a protracted period of uncertainty in Seoul may trigger a strategic pivot toward capital preservation and increased caution regarding large-scale future outlays. For Vietnamese policymakers, who rely on steady South Korean capital flows to meet ambitious national growth targets, the prospect of a slowdown in high-value investment projects remains a primary concern.

For the Vietnamese-American community, especially a younger generation raised on the polished image of South Korea through K-pop and K-dramas, the scale of this political scandal has been both shocking and surreal. Across the business landscape of Little Saigon, from phở restaurants to the nail salon industry, entrepreneurs who frequently collaborate with Korean-American partners are following the situation with keen interest. While the political instability in Seoul has yet to directly impact day-to-day life or the status of visa categories like F2B, H-1B, or EB-5, the crisis has nonetheless become a primary topic of conversation throughout the diaspora.