A Seoul court has imposed long prison terms on five former senior military commanders over their roles in the December 3 martial-law episode. Former Defense Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyung received 18 years, former Capital Defense Commander Lee Jin-woo 15 years, former Defense Intelligence Commander Moon Sang-ho 12 years, former Army Chief of Staff Park An-su 10 years and former Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-geun nine years. The September 21 rulings are first-instance judgments.
The officers had been charged over actions carried out after martial law was declared, including deploying troops to the National Assembly and the National Election Commission. Korean reporting also described allegations involving plans to detain political figures. The court accepted most of the major allegations brought by the special prosecutor and found the commanders criminally responsible for participating in the operation.
The court separated the officers while assigning responsibility
The sentences distinguish between the officers while treating the use of military command in the episode as serious conduct. Yeo received the longest term at 18 years, while the other four sentences ranged from nine to 15 years. The penalties were below the prosecution's requests, which Korean reports said reached 20 to 30 years for some defendants, but the court still imposed substantial prison terms.
The judgments matter beyond the individual defendants because they address how responsibility travels through a military chain of command when senior officers execute an unlawful order. The court's findings focus on what the commanders did with the forces under their control, rather than treating the episode solely as a decision made at the political level. That creates a detailed judicial record for the actions of the military leadership during the December 3 events.
Because these are first-instance rulings, the legal process is not finished. Appeals can challenge both the findings and the sentences, and related proceedings will continue to shape the final legal account of the martial-law episode. For now, the September 21 decisions establish the heaviest set of penalties yet described in the persisted evidence for the senior military officers tried together in this case.