Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

In December 2024, then-South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol made a botched attempt at imposing military rule to reassert his leadership.

That was overturned six hours later, after lawmakers defied armed police and military to gather inside parliament and vote down the decree.

Yoon was subsequently impeached by parliament, arrested and charged with multiple offences.

Thursday's verdict - on the charge of leading an insurrection - was in relation to the most serious of those charges. He still faces further trials from aiding an enemy state to violating campaign law.

Other officials were also found guilty of offences; our earlier post has the full list, which includes his defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, as well as an ex-police chief.

Today's sentencing is unlikely to mark the end of the saga; Yoon and his fellow convicted officials may appeal their sentences.

This verdict is also unlikely to end Yoon’s political life, our correspondent in Seoul says.

Despite being a deeply unpopular president, Yoon has reinvented himself as a populist right-wing figure after his removal.

Following the verdict, our reporters have been speaking to Yoon's supporters outside court, where some were left tearful and others expressed hopes he would appeal.

An ex-general, though, tells the BBC that Yoon must take "responsibility for his misjudgement".

We're closing our live coverage there, but you can read more on Yoon Suk Yeol's fall from grace in our news story.

Jake Kwon
Seoul correspondent

Yoon is likely to appeal today’s verdict, after he fought the charges against him at every step in the trials.

That means it could now be many months before his insurrection verdict is confirmed.

Yoon is also facing three other martial law order related trials. The next serious one is the charge of benefitting the enemy. He is accused of sending a military drone to North Korea to provoke a confrontation which would have served as a pretext to the declaration of martial law.

Yoon can also appeal for a presidential pardon.

Every convicted president in South Korea’s past has been pardoned after only two to five years in prison, in the interest of national unity.

However, it’s difficult to imagine the current president Lee Jae Myung, who was nearly arrested during the martial law order, showing Yoon the same mercy.

Myung said earlier that insurrectionists must be punished to the end of their lives.

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images

Hundreds of protesters gathered today in support of the disgraced President Yoon - a reminder of the strong influence he still wields in segments of South Korean society.

Much of this support comes in spite of his dramatic downfall - and even because of it.

"At first I didn't support Yoon, but martial law opened my eyes," Oh Jung-hyuk, a musician in his 50s told the BBC previously during a pro-Yoon rally.

"We can see how deeply embedded leftist forces are in our society.”

Conspiracy theories like this - that the left-leaning Democratic Party wants to unify with North Korea - have gained traction after Yoon’s fall from grace.

Many observers say it was the former president who brought what had once been fringe claims into the mainstream discourse.

In fact Yoon cited North Korean communist forces within the Democratic Party as the reason for declaring martial law on that fateful December night in 2024.

Another conspirarcy theory claims that Yoon’s party was a victim of election fraud, in a ploy orchestrated by China.

These theories are amplified and spread by right-wing YouTubers with large followings, many of whom are young men who support Yoon.

Image source, Reuters

We're hearing more from Yoon Suk Yeol's lawyers, after the former South Korean president was jailed for life following an insurrection conviction.

In translated comments, Yoon Kab-Keun says today's ruling "ignores the clearly established facts".

“Watching what appears to be a collapse of the rule of law today, I am compelled to question whether we should proceed with an appeal or continue to participate in these criminal proceedings at all," he tells reporters outside the Seoul courthouse.

He says he will consult with Yoon before determining the next course of action.

To fight Yoon's short-lived insurrection in December 2024, which saw martial law imposed in South Korea for six hours, some citizens blocked military forces from entering South Korea's National Assembly building.

These citizens have now been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by professors, according to reports from various South Korean news outlets.

Kim Eui-young, a professor at Seoul National University, tells Hankyoreh newspaper that political science professors across the world recommended South Korea’s "citizen collective" to the Norwegian Nobel Committee last month.

He says this is given their role in "overcoming the martial law situation".

Image source, Getty Images

Yoon’s wife Kim Keon Hee was sentenced to 20 months in jail in January for accepting bribes from the controversial Unification Church, making it the first time in South Korea's history that a former presidential couple were convicted at the same time.

Yoon had already been sentenced to five years in jail for abusing power and obstructing justice in relation to his failed martial law bid in 2024. These are separate to the insurrection charge.

The court heard that Kim, 52, received 80m won ($56,000; £40,600) worth of gifts, which include a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel handbags, from the Unification Church between April and July 2022, in exchange for business and political favours.

She was, however, cleared on charges of stock price manipulation and receiving free opinion polls from a political broker before the 2022 presidential election.

Jake Kwon
Seoul correspondent

I never lived under South Korean dictatorship. I was born the year South Korea’s last dictator stepped down.

The curfews, the nighttime arrests, the crackdowns - I saw them in old news reels and movies, and heard about them in the stories my father told me.

When my father called me the night then president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, I heard fear in his voice. When I told him I was going to the National Assembly to cover the story, he was worried for me. I told him it would be alright but I don’t think I fully believed it myself.

It was a night of disbelief. When I first saw the news about martial law, I almost dismissed it as a mistake. Only when I watched his speech did it start to become real.

My hands were shaking so much I had trouble typing. I had a lump in my throat. I called my editor to tell her what had happened. But I didn’t really understand it either.

First, I had to google “martial law”.

This was 2024 in South Korea. Reading about the fight for democracy in 1987 that restored free and direct elections was a matter of pride for young South Koreans like me.

But now, the president had declared martial law.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

South Korea's National Assembly speaker has urged Yoon Suk Yeol to apologise to the public, after the ex-president was handed a life sentence for masterminding an insurrection.

Following Yoon's sentencing today, Woo Won-Shik says: “I hope Yoon repents his wrongdoing and offers a sincere apology to the people.”

The speaker of the National Assembly also says that it is "regrettable" that the judge took Yoon's failed insurrection into account when deciding on the sentence.

Earlier, the court noted that the failed use of martial law by Yoon - which was only imposed for six hours - acted as a mitigating factor in his case.

Woon says the reason Yoon's insurrection "failed" was not due to "poor preparation" by the ex-president, but rather because "the National Assembly and the people united to resist and block it".

Leehyun Choi
Reporting from Seoul

Kim Mi-Hyun, 29, tells me she is “deeply disappointed” to hear today’s verdict.

“I'm at a loss and ache on behalf of our former president," she says.

"I will keep coming out, I’m hopeful that the sentencing will change in his favour down the line.”

Jake Kwon
Seoul correspondent

The crowd of Yoon supporters that has been surrounding the Seoul courthouse has mostly dispersed now, though some stragglers are still around arguing.

We've spoken to a few of them; they say they don't expect Yoon to win the appeals.

But, they stress they are going to keep showing up for the former president.

Image source, JEON HEON-KYUN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The leader of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DP) alleges that the court has undermined justice by giving former president Yoon Suk Yeol a life sentence instead of sentencing him to death.

As a reminder, prosecutors asked for Yoon to be given the death penalty, arguing that a lesser sentence may not send a strong enough message to those who may wish to attempt something similar to military rule in the future.

Such a decision is "undermining judicial justice," says Jung Chung-rae, who leads the DP.

Chung-rae says Yoon "masterminded an insurrection that shook the very foundations of our nation."

The DP leader went on to call Thusday's sentencing "a clear regress" from the Koreans who opposed Yoon and called for his impeachment"at the top of their lungs".

"The public will find [today's decision] deeply unsatisfactory and unacceptable,” he says.

Kelly Ng
Live reporter

Yoon Suk Yeol is hardly the first former South Korean leader who has had their reputations marred or terms interrupted by scandal.

Here's a list of former presidents whose political careers ended dramatically.

• South Korea's first president Syngman Rhee stepped down after his re-election in 1960 escalated into bloody, student-led protests. He fled to Hawaii, where he died in 1965.
• Military leader Park Chung-hee led a coup in 1961 to overthrow Rhee's successor and become president. He grew increasingly authoritarian during his term and was eventually assassinated by his own spy chief.
• Military commander Chun Doo-hwan gained power in 1980 after yet another coup. He is mostly remembered as a dictator who was unapologetic till the end. In 1996, Chun and his successor Roh Tae-woo were jailed for corruption, and their roles in the coup and the Gwangju massacre. They were pardoned after serving just two years in prison.
• Human rights lawyer Roh Moo-hyun won the 2002 election as an underdog but was dogged by corruption allegations after leaving office, which prompted him to take his own life.
• Former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak won the 2007 election by a landslide. He was succeeded by Park Chung-hee's daughter Park Geun-hye, who was later impeached and later jailed over a corruption scandal involving a Shamanistic cult leader. Lee, too, was convicted for bribery. Both were given jail terms but eventually pardoned.

Image source, EPA

Yoon's verdict follows that of his former prime minister Han Duck-soo who was handed a 23-year jail term last month for his role in what the court called an "insurrection from the top".

That sentence was eight years more than the 15 years prosecutors had asked for.

The court found Han guilty of abetting Yoon’s martial law attempt and failing to hold a proper cabinet meeting to approve the former president’s decree.

Han was the first member of Yoon’s cabinet to be convicted over the 2024 martial law attempt, followed by former interior minister Lee Sang-min, who was sentenced to seven years in jail.

A former South Korean lieutenant general says that he is not surprised that ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol has been found guilty of insurrection today.

Speaking to the BBC's Newsday, Chun In-Bum says Yoon "has to take responsibility for his misjudgement", adding that the former president "should not have taken his authority and tried to use force to resolve a political issue".

The ex-lietunant says South Korea is "lucky that nobody was killed" during the six hours in December 2024, when martial law was imposed in the country.

He also argues that the military who followed orders to capture the current president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, must be held responsible.

"The excuse that "I was only following orders" will not be enough to exempt them from responsibility," says In-Bum.

The former general adds that "many good lessons" will come from today, and it will be a "continuous education" for authority figures to "do the right thing".

Hosu Lee
Reporting from Seoul

After the sentence, one angry man came up on stage and started attacking a cameraman for local channel KBS with his flag.

The man was taken out by police and the camera seems to be mostly okay.

There were a few others who were very angry and directed this at the media on stage, telling them to come down.

Jake Kwon
Seoul correspondent

I made a beeline for the National Assembly.

The only way to cancel martial law is for 150 lawmakers to gather and vote against it. And they were en route, just like us, speeding through Seoul close to midnight.

One lawmaker told me over the phone that fully armed soldiers were already in the assembly building.

MPs and their aides already inside were using chairs, tables and whatever they could find to barricade the building to keep the soldiers out, he said.

Another was out of breath when he answered my call. Police blocked him from entering the grounds, so he had to get protesting citizens to boost him over the fence. He was now sprinting to the hall.

I arrived to chaos - sirens, police, an angry crowd chanting, “Down with the autocrat, no, no martial law”.

There were hundreds of protesters of all ages. It was freezing but the crowd only got bigger. It was hard to believe this crowd was illegal, according to the martial law Yoon had declared.

A little after 1am, there was a loud cheer. “We won! We won!”. The 190 lawmakers who had made it inside unanimously voted to strike down martial law.

It would take another three hours for Yoon to back down.

An old man watching from afar told me he remembered life under military rule. It was a terrible time, he said, and he had to come out because that could not happen again.

Image source, Getty Images

As we reported earlier, Yoon and his former allies have received jail sentences ranging from three years to life.

But among the defendants, two were found not guilty.

They are Kim Yong-gun, the former chief of the defence ministry investigation bureau, and Yoon Seung-yeong, a former official at the police investigation bureau.

We're hearing a reaction from Yoon Suk Yeol's lawyer, after the former South Korean president was jailed for life for leading an insurrection.

Yoon's lawyer says the verdict was not backed by evidence, and accuses the judge of following a pre-written script before delivering the sentence.

Image source, Getty Images

A South Korean court has handed a life sentence to the country's former president Yoon Suk Yeol over a botched attempt to impose military rule in December 2024.

Here's what's happened as the court delivered its verdict:

• Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of leading an insurrection
• As he learned his fate, the former president displayed no emotion, our Seoul correspondent writes
• His defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, was also found guilty and faces a sentence of 30 years imprisonment
• Yoon was also found to have ordered the military to capture opposition leader and now president - Lee Jae Myung
• Other verdicts included Yoon being found guilty of abuse of authority, and committing acts to subvert constitutional order
• As Yoon's supporters watched outside court, the judge dismissed procedural concerns brought by the former president's team
• But the court found there was insufficient evidence that Yoon had planned the imposition of martial law a year in advance
• Other officials were sentenced alongside Yoon, including his former intelligence commander and ex-police chief - we've a full list of their sentences
• Yoon, and those convicted alongside him, may now choose to appeal their sentences