Overview
- The Seoul High Court, which ruled Thursday, reduced Han Duck-soo’s prison term to 15 years after upholding most convictions tied to the 2024 martial law decree.
- Judges said Han helped give the decree a veneer of legality by organizing a Cabinet process, seeking ministers’ signatures, and discussing plans to cut power and water to critical media outlets.
- The panel affirmed convictions for falsifying and later discarding a revised proclamation and for lying under oath, but it overturned one perjury count about seeing a document handed between ministers.
- The court cited scant evidence that Han plotted the operation in advance and noted more than 50 years of public service as reasons to lower the sentence.
- Han has been jailed since January and plans to appeal to the Supreme Court in a case linked to Yoon Suk Yeol’s six-hour 2024 martial law, for which the former president received a life sentence.