Supreme Court to Allow Live Broadcast of Verdict for Former President Yoon Suk Yeol

SEOUL, July 7 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will allow a live broadcast of its verdict for former President Yoon Suk Yeol over charges of obstruction of justice by blocking investigators from detaining him in the wake of his failed martial law bid in 2024.

The ruling is scheduled to be delivered at 2 p.m. Thursday, marking the top court's first ruling for Yoon over charges stemming from his surprise declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024.

Special counsel Cho Eun-suk's team filed a request for a live broadcast last Friday. Yoon's legal team had opposed the broadcast, arguing it could cause "irreparable harm" to his right to a fair trial, as well as his personal rights and reputation, but the court rejected the objection.

Broadcasters will transmit live trial footage filmed with the court's own equipment.

The jailed former president is accused of having ordered his bodyguards to stop investigators from executing a warrant to detain him in January 2025.

He is also charged with violating the rights of nine Cabinet members by not calling them to an advance meeting to review his martial law plan, falsifying public documents by revising the martial law proclamation after the decree was lifted in order to disguise its procedural flaws and later discarding the document.

An appeals court sentenced Yoon to seven years in prison in April after finding him guilty of the charges, an increase of two years from the lower court's ruling but less than the 10 years recommended by a special counsel team.

Yoon's main trial on charges of leading an insurrection through the martial law bid is ongoing at an appellate court. In the first ruling, he was sentenced to life in prison.