Prosecutors Seek 25-Year Sentence for Park Sung-jae Over Role in Insurrection in Appellate Trial

Former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae, indicted on charges of performing a key role in an insurrection, faced a requested sentence of 25 years in prison at the closing hearing of his appellate trial held at the Seoul High Court on the 29th. Special prosecutor Cho Eun-seok's insurrection investigation team rebuked the defendant, saying, "On the night of December 3, 2024, the defendant witnessed the insurrectionary crime unfold before his very eyes yet failed to hold it up to the standard of the law," adding that he "became Yoon Suk-yeol's lackey and helped carry out a self-serving coup." The team asked the court to sentence him to 25 years in prison. "We ask the court to deliver a stern judgment under the law so that no high-ranking public official like the defendant ever emerges in this country again," the special prosecution team said.

According to the indictment, Park is accused of engaging in key insurrection duties after martial law was declared, including convening a meeting of Justice Ministry executives, reviewing the dispatch of prosecutors to the joint investigation headquarters of the martial law command, and ordering staff to check the capacity of correctional facilities and to report for duty to handle overseas travel bans. He is also accused of having the ministry's prosecution affairs bureau, immediately after martial law was lifted, draw up the so-called "abuse-of-power document" containing arguments to justify the martial law declaration.

Park was also tried on charges of accepting First Lady Kim Keon-hee's request to quash an investigation against her (a violation of the anti-graft law), but the first-instance court dismissed those charges, and the ruling was finalized after the special prosecution team withdrew its appeal. As a result, the sentence handed down by the appellate court will determine Park's final punishment.