When a detention warrant for then-President Yoon Suk-yeol was issued in Jan. last year, guilty verdicts were finalized for the participants who rioted at the Seoul Western District Court.
The Supreme Court's Third Division (Presiding Justice Oh Seok-jun) on the 30th finalized a lower-court ruling that sentenced 17 people, including a person surnamed Kim, indicted on charges including special trespass into a building, to prison terms either to be served or suspended.
Kim and others, around 3 a.m. on Jan. 19 last year, stormed in after smashing the main gate and glass windows of the Seoul Western District Court when a detention warrant for former President Yoon was issued at the request of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). They then damaged furnishings and facilities inside.
They were also brought to trial on charges of special unlawful confinement for blocking a vehicle carrying CIO prosecutors and others who were returning after completing a pre-arrest suspect interrogation (substantive warrant review), preventing it from moving.
Police analyzed recorded evidence, mobile phone location data, and YouTube videos of the scene at the time to identify those involved in the disturbance at the Western District Court. Prosecutors completed the investigation and sequentially brought them to trial.
The participants sentenced by the Supreme Court that day are 18 people, excluding those who abandoned or withdrew appeals or petitions for final appeal among the 49 who received a first-instance ruling on Aug. 1 last year.
In the first trial, 40 people were sentenced to prison terms of 1 to 5 years, 8 received suspended prison sentences, and 1 was fined. In the second trial, 20 of the 36 reviewed had their sentences partially reduced depending on the severity of their crimes.
The Supreme Court also upheld a fine of 2 million won for documentary director Jeong Yun-seok, 45, who claimed he entered the court with a camera for the public interest to record the scene.
The appellate court found that, since Jeong entered the Seoul Western District Court grounds and filmed while separated from the rally participants, it could not be assessed that he displayed the "power of a crowd," but determined that, from the perspective of the court staff, they could not distinguish any difference between Jeong's entry into the building and that of the other defendants.