Seoul, 13 July (H.S.):

Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to two years in prison after the Seoul Central District Court found him guilty of violating the country's Political Funds Act in connection with the free opinion poll case. The court also ordered the confiscation of 13.96 million won (approximately ₹8.93 lakh) from Yoon.

According to South Korea's state-run Yonhap News Agency, Special Prosecutor Min Jung-ki's team alleged that Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, received 58 opinion polls worth approximately 270 million won (around ₹1.72 crore) free of charge from political broker Myung Tae-kyun between April 2021 and March 2022.

However, the court did not uphold all the charges. It ruled that Yoon had unlawfully accepted 14 opinion polls free of cost during the period, determining that these constituted illegal political funding under South Korean law.

The court further found that, in return for the opinion polls, Yoon had promised to support the nomination of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun as the conservative People Power Party's candidate in the June 2022 parliamentary by-election.

While delivering the verdict, the court observed that Yoon's actions had undermined public trust in politics and negatively affected the country's democratic system, adding that the sentence was appropriate in view of the seriousness of the offence.

In the same case, political broker Myung Tae-kyun was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison term for Yoon and a three-year sentence for Myung.

The ruling is separate from another case in which former First Lady Kim Keon Hee was acquitted by the Seoul High Court on similar allegations. The prosecution has appealed that acquittal, while Yoon's legal team has also announced that it will challenge the latest verdict.

Notably, Yoon Suk Yeol is already facing multiple legal proceedings. In 2024, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a separate rebellion case related to his failed attempt to impose martial law.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar