On the 7th, the Seoul High Court’s Criminal Division 12-1 sentenced Han to 15 years in prison for charges including performing key duties in an insurrection. The term was eight years less than the 23-year sentence handed down at the first trial.
The panel said, as the lower court did, that Han played a central role in the process of declaring martial law and shook the constitutional order. It found him guilty of carrying out key tasks in the insurrection, including proposing that a Cabinet meeting be convened to make the declaration appear to have undergone normal deliberation, and trying to obtain after-the-fact signatures from Cabinet members after the declaration.
The court also treated as participation in the insurrection Han’s actions on the day martial law was declared, when he discussed with former Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min at the presidential office specific plans to carry out repression, including blocking major state institutions and cutting electricity and water to media outlets.
As in the first trial, the court also convicted Han over allegations that, after martial law was lifted, he conspired with Yoon and former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun to sign and then discard a backdated proclamation drafted by former aide Kang Eui-gu to conceal legal flaws in the original declaration. The court found him guilty of making a false official document and violating the Presidential Records Act.
However, unlike the first trial, the appeals court acquitted Han of perjury. The court said Han’s testimony at the Constitutional Court in February last year, when he appeared as a witness in the president’s impeachment trial and said he had not seen the martial law proclamation, was false. But it ruled that his answer to the effect that he did not see Kim hand the document to Lee was difficult to treat as perjury.
The court, as the lower court did, did not view as key insurrection duties Han’s act of asking then-ruling People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho about the situation at the National Assembly after the declaration, or his attendance at an outside event as a stand-in at Yoon’s direction. It also maintained not-guilty rulings on allegations that Han delayed Cabinet deliberation after martial law was lifted and on a charge of using a false official document.
Han’s lawyers said after the ruling that they could not accept the findings of fact or legal reasoning and indicated they would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court.
The special counsel team told reporters that while the sentence fell short of the first-trial term, it viewed the decision as meaningful. The team said it would decide whether to appeal after reviewing the written judgment.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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