Ousted South Korean president sentenced over lying during campaign

Ousted South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday was sentenced to a suspended 18-month prison sentence by the Seoul Central District Court for lying during his 2022 campaign. Yoon was indicted over misrepresenting his connections to a fortune teller, who had connections to the controversial Unification Church, as well as lying about his connections to a tax official accused of bribery. Yoon had previously denied maintaining a relationship with the fortune teller, known as Monk Geonjin, but evidence illustrated a decade-long connection arranged by his wife. This case is just one of seven of Yoon’s ongoing legal issues, the most notable of which stems from his 2024 martial law decree for which he was charged with treason and abuse of power. He was also found guilty of attempting to provoke a North Korean attack as a justification for his martial law and alleged insurrection plot. The death penalty was suggested but in February 2026, he was sentenced to life imprisonment which is currently serving. A spokesperson for Yoon’s Peoples Power Party has said that Yoon will appeal the decision to the highest court available which is the Supreme Court of Korea. If found guilty, the penalty would not impact Yoon much as he is already serving a life sentence. However, under South Korea’s Public Official Elections Act, any party that wins above 15% of the vote will have their expenses reimbursed by the government (Article 122-2), but if a member of a party is found in breach of election law, the party must return the money (Article 265-2). Most notably, the Seoul Central District Court applied a critical legal benchmark when handing down his suspended sentence, citing the landmark May 2025 Supreme Court precedent which established that campaign misinformation needs to be judged against the standard of how ordinary voters would reasonably interpret the context of the candidate’s words in the moment. The People’s Power Party may now be required to return around USD$27 million worth of campaign funds, financially crippling the party that was narrowly defeated by the Democratic Party of Korea in the 2025 election.