South Korea’s Yoon gets life for martial law bid after rapid rise

By Jack Kim

SEOUL, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Ousted South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor who took gambles to win power, finally fell victim to his own recklessness, people who knew him said, through a belief that he could crush political enemies by declaring martial law.

Yoon, 65, was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison by the Seoul Central District Court, for masterminding insurrection, capping a spectacular fall from grace that saw him stripped of office and landed behind bars.

There were some early signs, colleagues say in hindsight of Yoon, who used his career as a prosecutor as a springboard to become president in his first run for elected office, just a year after entering politics.

"If I had gone to the military academy, I would have staged a coup," former judge Han Dong-soo quotes Yoon, then a powerful prosecutor, as saying in 2020, at a dinner the future president hosted with free-flowing drinks.

On Thursday, the court found Yoon guilty of declaring martial law in a subversion of constitutional order, by deploying troops to storm parliament and drag his opponents to jail.

Yoon, wearing a dark suit and noticeably slimmer since his arrest a year ago, stood ashen-faced listening to the verdict. His lawyer protested against it and said the defence team would discuss with the former president whether to appeal.

Yoon has previously denied wrongdoing, saying his action was meant to send a warning that democracy and freedom were under threat from "anti-state" forces trying to take over South Korea.

DARING AND RAPID RISE TO POWER

As a prosecutor who investigated two incumbent presidents, Yoon became a household name.

"Yoon Suk Yeol was the most powerful prosecutor-general ever," said Han, who headed internal inspection at the prosecutors' office under Yoon.

"He used the office to carry out his plan to become president and in doing so, his actions were daring."

By 2022, after leading a graft investigation of the justice minister, he had become a darling of conservatives frustrated with the liberal policies of then-President Moon Jae-in, setting him up to become their candidate for president.

But once in office, he became increasingly embittered by unrelenting battles with opponents that a former prosecution rival, Lee Sung-yoon, said drew out a recklessness that had been Yoon's defining trait.

By the time he imposed martial law in December 2024, Yoon was badly bruised politically, overshadowed by scandals centering on his wife, Kim Keon Hee, accused of inappropriately accepting gifts, though she faced no charges at the time.

An inquiry by a special prosecutor after Yoon's ouster resulted in her conviction for bribery in January, however, and she is now serving a 20-month jail term.

Opposition clashes marred the year before Yoon's martial law declaration, ensuring his policies and legislative agenda were stymied.

But the struggles at home contrasted with Yoon's relative success on the world stage.

His drive to resolve a decades-long diplomatic row with Japan and join it in three-way security cooperation with mutual ally the United States are widely seen as one of his few policy achievements.

On full display at a White House event in 2023 was Yoon's winning trait of bonding on a personal level, when he took the stage and belted out the 1970s pop hit "American Pie" for an astonished then-President Joe Biden and a delighted crowd.

SHAMAN, 'YES MEN'

Born in a well-to-do family, Yoon excelled at school and entered the elite Seoul National University law school. But his penchant for partying led him to repeatedly fail the bar exam before he passed on the ninth try at age 30.

As a prosecutor, he was known for an easy-going style, but acquaintances said he became more ambitious after marrying Kim, a successful art curator.

His presidency got off to a rocky start when he moved the presidential office from the traditional Blue House compound, sparking questions about whether it was motivated by a feng shui belief that the site was cursed.

Yoon denied that the first couple had any involvement with a shaman.

When he refused to fire top officials after a Halloween crowd crush killed 159 people, Yoon was accused of protecting his "yes men".

One was Safety Minister Lee Sang-min, a graduate of Yoon's high school, who was later tried and jailed for seven years for his role in Yoon's martial law declaration.

Another high school alumnus was Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun, a former chief of presidential security, who is on trial for insurrection, accused of being the main figure advising Yoon to declare martial law. He has denied wrongdoing.

Yoon's downfall came about through listening to the wrong people, said Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Myongji University, adding that he probably "still thinks he did the right thing" in declaring martial law.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Ed Davies and Clarence Fernandez)