The ‘Noh Sang-won notebook’ recognized for the first time in the Park Sung-jae trial… Court assessments of when martial law preparations began are moving earlier - 경향신문
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Former Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae, indicted on charges including participation in the 12·3 insurrection, appears for the first-instance sentencing hearing at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 22nd. The court sentenced him to 25 years in prison that day. Yonhap News
The first-instance court that sentenced former Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae to 25 years in prison determined that former President Yoon Suk-yeol and others began preparing for the illegal 12·3 martial law around 2023. In particular, the court for the first time recognized as powerful evidence the notebook memos of former Defense Intelligence Command chief Noh Sang-won, whose probative value had long been disputed, and found that discussions related to martial law proceeded over an extended period. This stands in contrast to the first-instance panel in the case charging former President Yoon as leader of the insurrection, which did not recognize the notebook's probative value and viewed the timing of preparation as December 1, immediately beforehand.
According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting on the 23rd, Criminal Division 33 of the Seoul Central District Court (presiding judge Lee Jin-gwan) so ruled the previous day, finding Park guilty of, among other charges, engaging in key duties for insurrection. In its written judgment, the panel viewed the December 3, 2024 proclamation of emergency martial law by former President Yoon as not spontaneous and as having been prepared from at least 2023. It found that Yoon established the plan to proclaim martial law through former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun, and that Kim discussed it with former Defense Intelligence Command chief Noh Sang-won, former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In-hyung, and others.
The special counsel team for the insurrection led by Cho Eun-seok had argued that preparations for martial law had proceeded since the second half of 2023, citing plans for appointments to the military command and follow-up measures after martial law recorded in Noh's notebook and in notes on former chief Yeo's mobile phone. However, Criminal Division 25 of the Seoul Central District Court (then presiding judge Ji Gui-yeon), while sentencing former President Yoon to life imprisonment on the insurrection-leader charge, rejected the ‘Noh Sang-won notebook,’ reasoning that the time of writing was hard to pinpoint and the handwriting crude, among other grounds.
By contrast, the panel of Judge Lee Jin-gwan, which handled Park's case, determined that Noh had kept at his mother's residence in Seocheon, South Chungcheong, a notebook he actually used, and that the notebook seized by investigators was indeed the one he had used. It especially credited the reliability of the evidence, noting that phrases recorded in the notebook such as ‘entry into Yeouido,’ ‘seizure of entrances,’ and ‘complete restriction on civilian access’ matched measures actually carried out under the state of emergency martial law. It further held that phrases such as ‘constitutional amendment (reelection to third term),’ ‘electoral system reform,’ and ‘number of National Assembly members 1/2’ also supported a plan to proclaim martial law that was unconstitutional and unlawful both procedurally and substantively. It concluded that former President Yoon and others sought to create an emergency legislative body like one from the Chun Doo-hwan era to replace the National Assembly, which denies the constitutional system of parliament and political parties.
The panel interpreted documents such as an instruction delivered to former Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Choi Sang-mok on ‘budgeting related to a national emergency legislative body’ as showing that former President Yoon and others sought not only to proclaim martial law but also to restructure the constitutional order. As to the crude handwriting, it stated, “It appears the statements of Kim Yong-hyun were taken down on the spot as they were made.”
This ruling is noteworthy in that the judiciary is moving up its assessments of when preparations for martial law began. Previously, Criminal Division 25 determined that former President Yoon decided on martial law on December 1, 2024, two days before the proclamation. Later, however, Criminal Division 36 of the same court (presiding judge Lee Jeong-yeop), handling the ‘Pyongyang drone suspicion’ case, sentenced former President Yoon to 30 years in prison on the general aiding-the-enemy charge, accepting part of the special counsel argument. It found that from September 2024 he prepared a drone operation to create the conditions for a martial law proclamation. In addition, with Criminal Division 33 tracing the start of martial law discussions back to 2023, the timing of preparation and whether there was a plan are expected to be key issues on appeal.
The judgment in Park's case also included a finding that former President Yoon proclaimed martial law with the case involving candidate nomination interference allegations by ‘political broker’ Myeong Tae-gyun in mind. The panel determined that just before the proclamation, Yoon told Park to come to the presidential office, then, after seeing a report that Myeong had been arrested and indicted, called again and instructed him to ascertain the relevant facts. Myeong also faced a charge of instigating evidence concealment for having his brother-in-law hide his mobile phone, known as the ‘golden phone,’ among other items, and the panel stated, “There is a suspicion that Yoon Suk-yeol, curious about the whereabouts of the ‘Myeong Tae-gyun golden phone,’ instructed Park Sung-jae to find it.”
It further found it reasonable, based on the statement of former minister Kim Yong-hyun and other material, to view that former President Yoon, while mentioning the Myeong Tae-gyun case, explained the emergency martial law plan to former minister Park.
