Former President Yoon Suk-yeol has appealed his conviction after a lower court handed down a suspended prison term for making false statements about Jeon Seong-bae, a shaman known as "Geonjin Beopsa," ahead of the 20th presidential election.
Yoon's legal team said on the 27th, "We submitted the appeal a short while ago in connection with the Public Official Election Act violation case, citing misjudgment of facts, misapplication of the law, and improper sentencing."
Earlier, the 21st Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Court (presiding judge Cho Sun-pyo) sentenced Yoon to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years, on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act. The court said "all charges are found guilty," ruling that both Yoon's statement that he had never met Jeon together with his wife Kim Keon-hee during his time as a presidential candidate in 2022, and his statement in 2021 that he had not introduced a lawyer to former Yongsan Tax Office chief Yoon Woo-jin, constituted false statements.
After the sentencing that day, Yoon's legal team issued a statement, foreshadowing the appeal, saying, "We deeply regret the first-instance ruling and believe there are serious errors in the recognition of facts and the application of the law." The legal team also said, "We find it very regrettable that this ruling may impose a serious disadvantage on the People Power Party, namely the return of election reimbursement costs amounting to 40 billion won."
If Yoon's first-instance sentence is finalized by the Supreme Court, the People Power Party must return all costs reimbursed in the 20th presidential election to the National Election Commission. The Public Official Election Act stipulates that anyone whose election-nullifying sentence of a fine of 1 million won or more for an election crime is finalized must return the amount reimbursed by the election commission. However, in the case of a presidential election, the responsibility for returning election costs falls not on the individual candidate but on the recommending party. In the 20th presidential election, the People Power Party received a total of 39.7 billion won in reimbursement from the election commission, including 39.4 billion won in election costs and 300 million won in deposit.
