Capital Punishment Appears More Likely for South Korea’s Ex-President, After His Envoy in America Gets Prison Time

A lengthy prison term imposed on a former highly respected South Korean ambassador to America has shocked his friends and contacts in Washington while portending the death sentence for the ousted Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol.“Very unfortunate,” the director of Korean issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Victor Cha, told the Sun after the ex-ambassador, Han Duck-soo, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his involvement in the abortive attempt by Mr. Yoon to impose martial law in December 2024.Mr. Cha, in charge of Korea and Japan issues on the national security council during the George W. Bush presidency, got to know Mr. Han after his arrival in Washington soon after the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. In nearly three years in Washington, Mr. Han played a key role in negotiations for a trade agreement between South Korea and the U.S. known by the acronym KORUS.Mr. Cha predicted that Mr. Han, 76, who was prime minister when Mr. Yoon sought to curb his leftist foes by imposing martial law, will win a reprieve well before serving 23 years in prison. The severity of the sentence, eight years longer than prosecutors recommended, means the death sentence for Mr. Yoon, as demanded by prosecutors, is quite possible.Mr. Cha believes that Mr. Yoon, like Mr. Han, could eventually be freed by a future Korean president or even by the current leftist president, Lee Jae-myung, who was elected after Mr. Yoon’s impeachment and ouster by the constitutional court in April.Mr. Lee, said Mr. Cha, could commute a death sentence in the interests of reducing tensions between conservatives and liberals. The latter, including leftists who control the national assembly, blocked Mr. Yoon’s legislative program, leading to his ill-advised attempt at stifling dissent by issuing his martial law decree. Unlike Mr. Yoon, the reputation of Mr. Han, who has a doctorate from Harvard, rests not on political success but on his appointments as prime minister and as finance minister and trade minister under liberal and conservative governments.As ambassador to Washington during the first three years of Mr. Obama’s presidency, Mr. Han came to be regarded as an articulate, soft-spoken, knowledgeable emissary, willing to negotiate on critical points in American-Korean trade relations, including improving access to Korean markets for American products in a deal known by the acronym, KORUS. “Ambassador Han has made many contributions to the development and modernization of the Korean economy,” says the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Seoul. “Deregulation, market opening and strengthening of the market economy have been the three pillars of his philosophy and framework for the economic policy of Korea.” In pursuit of vengeance against those associated with Mr. Yoon’s government, however, prosecutors did not accept Mr. Han’s claim that he had questioned the wisdom of martial law at a cabinet meeting hastily called by Mr. Yoon before he issued his decree. Mr. Yoon had to withdraw the decree six hours later when the National Assembly voted it down. After the assembly impeached Mr. Yoon, Mr. Han served as acting president, then was himself impeached, only to have the impeachment overruled by a court, and again served as acting president.Now the country awaits what is sure to be a harsh sentence for Mr. Yoon at a time not only of political turmoil on the home front but also of questions about South Korea’s policy toward North Korea. Mr. Lee has pleaded for talks with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, who has repeatedly ignored him while cutting off all contacts with South Korea. Mr. Lee also has called for another meeting between Mr. Kim and President Trump, who saw him three times in 2018 and 2019 but failed to get him to agree to abandon or suspend his nuclear weapons program. Mr. Lee is considering cutting back on American-Korean joint military exercises, which American officers see as essential to defense against the North. Mr. Yoon reversed the policies of his leftist predecessor, former President Moon Jae-in, who limited exercises to war games on computers.The court has already sentenced Mr. Yoon to five years on the secondary charge of trying to avoid attempts at arresting him after his impeachment, but he faces seven other charges, notably for inciting rebellion, for which death is the ultimate punishment.

Capital Punishment Appears More Likely for South Korea’s Ex-President, After His Envoy in America Gets Prison Time

Capital Punishment Appears More Likely for South Korea’s Ex-President, After His Envoy in America Gets Prison Time

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