SEOUL: South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol denied he had committed insurrection Monday, as the impeached leader appeared in court on the first day of his criminal trial over his martial law declaration.
Yoon was formally stripped of office earlier this month, after being impeached and suspended by lawmakers over his December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, which saw armed soldiers deployed to parliament.
He became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in January in connection to the criminal case against him, although he was later released on procedural grounds.
Yoon attended the trial at Seoul Central District Court on Monday morning and was asked by the justices to state his name, date of birth and other personal information, according to pool reports.
Yoon is accused of insurrection over his abortive martial law declaration, but his legal team denied all the charges, with the former president then taking to the stand to defend himself.
“To frame an event that lasted only a few hours, was non-violent, and immediately accepted the dissolution request from the National Assembly as insurrection... strikes me as legally unfounded,” Yoon told the court.
Yoon, himself a former prosecutor, asked the court to display the prosecution’s presentation on a courtroom monitor, and proceeded to rebut their opening statement point by point, according to pool reports.
The prosecution argued that Yoon “planned to incite an uprising with the intent to subvert the constitutional order.”
They gave evidence including Yoon’s planning of the martial law in advance and his deployment of the military to the parliament, with orders to break windows and cut the power.
The court will hear witness testimonies from two military officers called by prosecutors, including one officer who claims he was instructed by top commanders “to drag out the lawmakers gathered in the National Assembly to lift the martial law.”
Lawmakers defied armed soldiers and climbed over fences in order to gather in parliament and vote down Yoon’s martial law declaration, forcing him to backtrack in a matter of hours.
Experts say his criminal trial is likely to be a lengthy one.
“The first verdict is likely to be delivered around August, but the case involves around 70,000 pages of evidence and numerous witnesses. So if deemed necessary by the court, the trial may be extended,” lawyer Min Kyoung-sic said.
Former president Park Geun-hye, for example, was impeached in December 2016 — but it wasn’t until January 2021 that the Supreme Court finalized her sentence for influence peddling and corruption.
If found guilty, Yoon would become the third South Korean president to be found guilty of insurrection – after two military leaders in connection to a 1979 coup.
“Legal experts say that the precedent coup could be applied in the current case, as it also involved the coercive deployment of military forces,” said Min.
For charges of insurrection, Yoon could be sentenced to life in prison or the maximum penalty: the death sentence.
But is it highly unlikely that sentence would be carried out. South Korea has had an unofficial moratorium on executions since 1997.
South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol denies insurrection at criminal trial
https://arab.news/b7e3f
South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol denies insurrection at criminal trial
- Yoon Suk Yeol was formally stripped of office earlier this month
- He became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested
Irish band Kneecap say Palestine statements ‘aren’t aggressive, murdering children is’
- Kneecap concluded performance at Coachella music festival by projecting 3 screens of pro-Palestinian messages
- Sharon Osbourne, a TV presenter, said group’s performance included ‘projections of anti-Israel messages’
LONDON: Northern Irish rap group Kneecap responded to calls for their US visas to be revoked after they displayed messages during their performance at the Coachella festival in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Kneecap, consisting of Moglai Bap and Mo Chara from Belfast, along with DJ Provai from Derry, told BBC Northern Ireland on Wednesday that their “statements aren’t aggressive, murdering 20,000 children is though,” in reference to Israeli actions in Gaza since late 2023.
The band concluded their performance at Coachella’s California desert music festival last weekend by projecting three screens of pro-Palestinian messages.
The first text said: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” followed by: “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes,” while the final message said: “F*** Israel. Free Palestine.”
Since October 2023, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while more than 100,000 others have been injured. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.
The Irish band’s performance was not streamed on the festival’s official YouTube page, the BBC reported. During the performance, Mo Chara said: “The Irish not so long ago were persecuted at the hands of the Brits, but we were never bombed from the... skies with nowhere to go. The Palestinians have nowhere to go.”
During the second weekend of the Coachella festival, from April 17-19, the trio led the audience in chants of “free, free Palestine.”
The band is scheduled to perform at several shows in the US and Canada in the coming months. It said that almost all the concerts planned for their US tour in October have sold out.
Sharon Osbourne, a former judge on TV talent shows “The X Factor” and “America’s Got Talent,” urged US authorities to revoke Kneecap’s work visas following their performance at Coachella.
She said the band’s performance included “projections of anti-Israel messages and hate speech.
“As someone of both Irish Catholic on my mother’s side and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage on her father’s side, and extensive experience in the music industry, I understand the complexities involved,” she said.
“I urge you to join me in advocating for the revocation of Kneecap’s work visa,” Osbourne added.
Commentators on Fox News condemned and accused the group of bringing “Nazi” sentiments to America.
Kneecap criticized Fox News comments, sharing fans’ supportive messages and noting that they received thousands of endorsements compared to “hundreds of violent Zionist threats.”
US authorities have not commented on the case, and no actions have been taken regarding the band’s visas.
Following Kashmir attack, Modi cuts short Saudi trip after talks on energy, defense
- Saudi Arabia is one of the top exporters of petroleum to India
- Modi met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before cutting short his visit
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia and India agreed to boost cooperation in supplies of crude and liquefied petroleum gas, according to a joint statement reported by the Saudi state news agency on Wednesday following a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was cut short by a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Saudi Arabia is one of the top exporters of petroleum to India.
Modi met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before cutting short his visit and returning to New Delhi after an attack on India's Jammu and Kashmir territory which killed 26 people, the worst attack in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings.
The two countries also agreed to deepen their defense ties and improve their cooperation in defence manufacturing, along with agreements in agriculture and food security.
"The two countries welcomed the excellent cooperation between the two sides in counter-terrorism and terror financing," the joint statement said.
Denmark’s King Frederik to visit Greenland, daily Sermitsiaq reports
- The visit to Greenland by Denmark’s head of state comes as US President Donald Trump seeks a takeover
COPENHAGEN: Denmark’s King Frederik will travel to Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, on April 28, Greenlandic daily Sermitsiaq reported on Wednesday, citing the island’s own government.
The visit to Greenland by Denmark’s head of state comes as US President Donald Trump seeks a takeover by the United States of the minerals-rich and strategically important island.
Denmark has rejected Trump’s ambition and says only Greenlanders themselves can decide the territory’s future.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik-Nielsen will travel to Denmark on April 26, where he will meet with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, according to Sermitsiaq.
The king will travel to Greenland together with Nielsen when the prime minister returns to the island, according to the report.
Chechnya leader’s son, 17, becomes head of Chechen security council
- It is the fourth time Adam Kadyrov has been appointed to an official position since 2023, when he was 15
- He already serves as his father’s top bodyguard
The teenage son of Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region and close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has been appointed secretary of the region’s security council, according to the council’s Telegram channel.
Adam Kadyrov turned 17 in November 2024. It is the fourth time he has been appointed to an official position since 2023, when he was 15.
He already serves as his father’s top bodyguard, a trustee of Chechnya’s Special Forces University, and an observer in a new army battalion.
Ramzan Kadyrov has led Chechnya, a mountainous Muslim region in southern Russia that tried to break away from Moscow in wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, since 2007.
He enjoys wide leeway from Putin to run Chechnya as his personal fiefdom in return for ensuring the stability of the region, where an Islamist, anti-Russian insurgency continued for around a decade after the end of full-scale conflict there in the early 2000s.
His rise to power came after his own father, Akhmat, was killed in a 2004 bombing by insurgents who saw him as a turncoat.
In September 2023, Adam Kadyrov was shown, in a video posted by his father on social media, beating a detainee accused of burning the Qur'an. Ramzan Kadyrov said he was proud of his son for defending his Muslim religion.
The detainee, Nikita Zhuravel, has since been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
Russian drone strike on bus kills 9 in Ukrainian city of Marhanets, Kyiv says
- Zelensky said the Russian strike hit a bus that was transporting workers of a mining and processing plant
- “An ordinary bus. Clearly a civilian object, a civilian target,” Zelensky said
KYIV: A Russian drone hit a bus carrying workers in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets on Wednesday, killing nine people and injuring close to 50, Kyiv officials said, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky said was a “deliberate war crime.”
Zelensky said the Russian strike hit a bus that was transporting workers of a mining and processing plant.
“An ordinary bus. Clearly a civilian object, a civilian target,” Zelensky said on X.
“It was an egregiously brutal attack – and an absolutely deliberate war crime,” he added, calling for “an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire.”
Russia fired a total of 134 attack drones at targets in Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Ukrainian officials arrived in London on Wednesday, even as most other big power foreign ministers pulled out, to hold talks about ways to achieve a ceasefire as a first step toward peace.
Marhanets, in south-central Ukraine, lies on the Ukrainian-controlled north bank of the Dnipro river’s dried-up reservoir that separates the warring sides.
Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said nine people were killed in the attack and 49 were injured.
Zelensky shared photographs of the aftermath of the attack on X, showing bodies lying in and next to the bus and being carried away by emergency workers.
Zelensky added most of the injured were women.
Elsewhere, an energy plant that provides electricity to the city of Kherson near southern front lines was destroyed in an artillery and drone attack, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Ukraine’s emergency service also reported a drone strike on the Synelnykivskyi district in the Dnipropetrovsk region that injured two people and sparked a fire at an agricultural enterprise.
Russia further fired drones into the central region of Poltava, injuring at least six people, its governor said.
A drone attack on civilian infrastructure in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa injured two people and sparked several fires, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
Russian drone salvoes also set off large-scale fires in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, in the northeast, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
Seven private houses, a storage building and an outbuilding were also damaged by drones hitting the Kyiv capital region, where a fire also broke out in a restaurant complex, its regional governor said.
Both Russia and Ukraine are under pressure from the United States to demonstrate progress toward ending the war that began with Russia’s 2022 full-blown invasion amid warnings that US President Donald Trump could walk away from peacemaking.
