What To Know About the Trial of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s Ousted Leader

Judges will rule on Thursday in the insurrection trial of former President Yoon Suk Yeol. He could get the death penalty for his short-lived imposition of martial law in 2024.Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul in 2022.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2026Updated 12:15 a.m. ETJudges in South Korea are expected to deliver a verdict and sentence on Thursday in the case of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is charged with leading an insurrection when he briefly imposed martial law in 2024.Mr. Yoon’s actions plunged South Korea into a constitutional crisis, and he was later impeached and ousted.South Korea’s criminal code allows only two punishments if he is found guilty of the insurrection charges: the death penalty or life imprisonment. Prosecutors have demanded the former.Here’s what to know:What is Yoon accused of?Mr. Yoon, 65, has been on trial since April on a series of criminal charges stemming from his martial law declaration on the night of Dec. 3, 2024. The insurrection charge is the most serious.Prosecutors argued that Mr. Yoon’s decision to ban all political activities and order the armed forces to seize the National Assembly​ amounted to an insurrection. They accused him of conspiring with the military commanders and police chiefs to detain his enemies, including the speaker of the Assembly and opposition leaders.Mr. Yoon denied the insurrection charge throughout his trial, saying that he had never intended to neutralize the legislature or arrest political leaders.He said he had declared martial law as “a warning” against an obstructive opposition, and he described the legislature as a “den of criminals” who used their parliamentary power to paralyze his government.What happened after his martial law declaration?Mr. Yoon’s decree banned all political activities and placed the news media under military control. Armed troops were sent to take over the National Assembly and the National Election Commission.But he was forced to withdraw it after six hours. Citizens who saw his declaration on TV rushed to the National Assembly and blocked the soldiers while lawmakers gathered inside and voted down his decree in the middle of the night.Mr. Yoon’s actions set off the country’s worst political crisis in decades. He was impeached by the National Assembly on Dec. 14 and arrested on the insurrection charge the following month, making him the first sitting president in South Korean history to face a criminal charge.He was formally expelled from office in April.Is the death penalty likely?Even if the court sentences Mr. Yoon to death, experts say he is unlikely to be executed.South Korea has not carried out any executions since December 1997, and the only former president condemned to capital punishment later had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.That leader was Chun Doo-hwan, a military dictator who ruled South Korea for most of the 1980s with an iron fist. He was sentenced in 1996 on insurrection and mutiny charges connected to his 1979 coup and a massacre of pro-democracy protesters the following year.Mr. Chun was released on a presidential pardon in 1997.Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.SKIP