SEOUL, South Korea — Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been found guilty of making false statements during his 2022 presidential campaign, marking yet another legal setback for the ousted leader who was removed from office last year.
The Seoul Central District Court handed down an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for three years, concluding that Yoon’s dishonest statements during the campaign may have interfered with voters’ ability to make a “fair judgment” of the candidates.
Yoon has denied the allegations, and his legal team intends to appeal the decision, contending that the court misread both the facts and South Korea’s election law.
Should the conviction survive the appeals process, the financial consequences for Yoon’s conservative People Power Party could be severe. The party may be required to repay approximately 40 billion won — roughly $27 million — in campaign expenses that were reimbursed by the government following Yoon’s narrow victory over current liberal President Lee Jae Myung in 2022.
South Korean law allows the government to cover election costs for candidates who earn more than 15% of the vote. However, those funds must be returned if the candidate is later convicted of an election law violation carrying a fine of at least 1 million won (about $680) or a stiffer penalty.
The court determined that Yoon was untruthful during a January 2022 interview when he minimized his connection to a fortune teller. That individual was subsequently convicted of acting as a go-between for Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, and the Unification Church, which allegedly paid her bribes in exchange for political influence.
The court also found that Yoon lied at a December 2021 press conference, falsely denying that he had introduced a defense attorney to a former Seoul tax official who was under investigation for bribery while Yoon was working as a state prosecutor in 2012.
Yoon sat quietly in court as the presiding judge read the verdict and made no public remarks afterward. The People Power Party had not released a statement by the time of this report.
This latest case is one of seven active criminal proceedings against Yoon, who remains behind bars. He was removed from office in April 2025, several months after he declared martial law in December 2024 — a move that lasted only a few hours and triggered the most serious political crisis South Korea had seen in decades.
Lawmakers managed to break through a line of heavily armed soldiers and police stationed outside Seoul’s National Assembly on the night of December 3, 2024, and voted to overturn the martial law decree, forcing Yoon’s Cabinet to rescind it.
Yoon is appealing several other convictions, including a rebellion charge — the most serious allegation tied to his failed power grab — for which he received a life sentence in February. Earlier this month, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a separate seven-year prison sentence against Yoon for bypassing a legitimate Cabinet process before declaring martial law and for resisting efforts by law enforcement to arrest him, making it the first of his cases to be finalized at the highest court level.
