Former 707 commander Kim Hyun-tae gets 12 years over Assembly blockade

A Seoul court sentenced former 707th Special Mission Group commander Kim Hyun-tae to 12 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the military operation at the National Assembly during the Dec. 3 martial-law episode. The first-instance ruling was part of a broader set of prison terms imposed on military officers accused of carrying out key tasks during the operation.

The court also sentenced Lee Sang-hyun to 10 years, while Kim Bong-gyu and Jung Sung-wook received seven-year terms and Kim Dae-woo received five years, according to Korean reporting on the judgments. The decisions make the case more than an assessment of one commander’s conduct: they assign individual criminal responsibility across several parts of the operation.

Obedience was not accepted as a shield

In explaining the sentences, the court described insurrection-related crimes as serious offenses that shake the country’s legal order. It also criticized officers for following unlawful orders from superiors rather than rejecting them. That reasoning is the central institutional point of the ruling because military command depends on obedience, but the court drew a line where an order itself is illegal.

For Kim and the other defendants, the immediate consequence is lengthy imprisonment under first-instance judgments. For the military, the broader practical message is that participation in an unlawful domestic operation can create personal criminal exposure even when actions are taken through a chain of command. The next question is how these judgments hold up as the cases proceed through any appeals and how they fit into the wider legal reckoning over the Dec. 3 events.