President Yoon Suk-yeol. [Yonhap News]

The Professors' Association for the Practice of Freedom and Justice (PUF) strongly condemned Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok for seeking a death sentence against President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of leading an insurrection during the final trial on January 13th, and on the 23rd, urged the court handling the case to render a judgment consistent with truth and justice.

In a statement released on the same day, PUF pointed out, "Special Prosecutor Cho's sentencing request goes against common sense based on reason and legal logic," and asserted, "We affirm that emergency martial law cannot be condemned as an act of insurrection."

Furthermore, it stated, "Concerns about the credibility of witness testimonies revealed during the trial raise serious questions about the investigation and indictment by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok for insurrection," and directly criticized, "We vividly witnessed the core testimonies of witnesses, which served as the basis for applying insurrection charges, dissolving into nothingness through the trial broadcast live on media."

It continued, "Special Prosecutor Cho's sentencing request is merely a fictional scenario unilaterally proposed, disregarding constitutional legitimacy," and criticized, "It completely disregarded the constitutional legitimacy of exercising the authority to declare emergency martial law, which the Constitution grants to the President as an inherent power."

PUF emphasized, "We note that the weakness of the evidence used by the special prosecutor to establish the charges of insurrection has already been proven to the world," and solemnly urged the court, "The court, through the bench of Judge Ji Gwi-yeon, will be the only alternative to defend constitutionalism and the rule of law."

It added, "The current act of seeking a death sentence by applying insurrection charges, despite the declaration of emergency martial law, an exercise of the President's inherent power, being lifted according to the will of the National Assembly without any violent consequences, invites international condemnation."

Editorial Department, Hanmi Ilbo

The following is the full statement from PUF.

We strongly condemn Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok's death sentence request, built on a tower of lies, and urge the court not to remain silent in the face of truth.

PUF (Professors' Association for the Practice of Freedom and Justice) strongly condemns Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok for seeking a death sentence against former President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of leading an insurrection during the final trial on January 13th, and urges the court handling the case to render a judgment consistent with truth and justice.

Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok's sentencing request goes against common sense based on reason and legal logic.

First, we affirm that the emergency martial law of 12.3. cannot be condemned as an act of insurrection. The President's authority to declare emergency martial law is an inherent power of the President as stipulated in Article 77 of the Constitution. Former President Yoon Suk-yeol declared emergency martial law to inform the public of the danger posed by anti-state forces and to secure evidence of election irregularities. The National Assembly can review whether these purposes constitute a legitimate reason for declaring emergency martial law, and in fact, the National Assembly voted to lift the martial law just a few hours after it was declared, and former President Yoon Suk-yeol, respecting the will of the National Assembly, lifted the emergency martial law. The process of declaring emergency martial law, the resolution by the National Assembly, and the President's lifting of martial law were merely normal political processes conducted in accordance with Article 77 of the Constitution. The emergency martial law was lifted within just a few hours and did not involve any loss of life. On the other hand, insurrection under Article 87 of the Criminal Act is a criminal act of staging a riot with the intent to exclude state power or disrupt the constitutional order. What state power was excluded in the process of the emergency martial law of 12.3., what disruption of the constitutional order was caused, and what riotous act was carried out for that purpose? On what grounds is Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok attempting to condemn the process of normal governance, as foreseen by the Constitution, as a crime of insurrection under the Criminal Act? It is difficult to find any appropriate legal basis or logic in Special Prosecutor Cho's sentencing request.

Second, concerns about the credibility of witness testimonies revealed during the trial raise serious questions about the investigation and indictment by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok for insurrection. We vividly witnessed the core testimonies of witnesses, which Special Prosecutor Cho used as the basis for applying insurrection charges, dissolving into nothingness through the trial broadcast live on media. In the testimonies of former National Intelligence Service First Deputy Director Hong Jang-won, former Special Warfare Command Commander Kwak Jong-geun, former 707th Special Mission Group Commander Kim Hyun-tae, and other related witnesses, facts that make it impossible to acknowledge the establishment of insurrection charges were starkly revealed, from admitting to the "worm memo printed from the internet," which was nothing short of a comedy, to the circumstances where the arrest order was issued by the commander before any phone call with the President, and the existence of reasonable doubt regarding the existence of the arrest list and arrest teams. When we also consider the objective circumstances shown in the video in front of the National Assembly building, where special forces personnel were not armed or wearing bayonets, and were mostly surrounded and pushed back by civilians in front of the National Assembly, it is absurd to consider the situation at the National Assembly at the time as meeting the requirements for the execution of a riot, which is a constituent element of the crime of insurrection. Nevertheless, the attempt to define this as insurrection is an unreasonable assertion that goes against the sound common sense of any rational person, and is merely sophistry that is legally impossible.

Third, Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok's sentencing request is merely a fictional scenario unilaterally proposed, disregarding constitutional legitimacy. Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok judged the situation to be a national emergency due to the indiscriminate abuse of legislative power, budgetary power, and impeachment power by the National Assembly, which has a majority of seats, and the legal impossibility of investigating suspicions of election irregularities. Accordingly, he completely disregarded the constitutional legitimacy of exercising the authority to declare emergency martial law, which the Constitution grants to the President as an inherent power. Therefore, we cannot help but suspect that there is a hidden political objective behind Special Prosecutor Cho's investigation and indictment, aiming to inflict serious harm or disadvantage on former President Yoon Suk-yeol, and that an attempt is being openly plotted to achieve this objective through an investigation and indictment tailored to that end. We are deeply concerned that the death sentence sought against former President Yoon Suk-yeol may also have been made in that vein. The death sentence request by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok, by committing the error of concluding that the emergency martial law of 12.3. and the subsequent actions were themselves acts of insurrection, by employing distorted and fabricated facts and a fictional scenario composed of conjecture and imagination, is an unconstitutional application of the law and deserves to be condemned.

Fourth, for acts under emergency martial law to be evaluated as a crime of insurrection, the constituent elements of Article 87 of the Criminal Act must be strictly met. We note that the weakness of the evidence used by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok to establish the charges of insurrection has already been proven to the world. Therefore, we solemnly urge the court that the only way to derive a just outcome, by respecting the spirit of the Constitution and the principle of legality, and by elucidating the substantive truth, through the bench of Judge Ji Gwi-yeon, who holds the final judgment authority in this case, will be the only alternative to defend constitutionalism and the rule of law in the Republic of Korea, a liberal democracy.

Finally, it is common for domestic issues today to simultaneously emerge as international issues or concerns, and in the current reality where information is shared in real-time with foreign countries through translation and interpretation, the act of seeking a death sentence by applying insurrection charges, despite the declaration of emergency martial law, an exercise of the President's inherent power, being lifted according to the will of the National Assembly without any violent consequences, invites international condemnation, and we also wish to point out that this will be remembered as a national disgrace that has driven our rule of law to the abyss.

January 23, 2026. All members of PUF